


The Devil's Mark

by ninhursag



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Apocalypse, Multi, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 15:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. In a broken world, Dean buys back his long missing brother. But worlds don't break by accident and Sam disappeared for a reason. If Dean can save his brother then he can start to think about saving the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes and thanks: The original idea for this madness was kind of [](http://kroki-refur.livejournal.com/profile)[**kroki_refur**](http://kroki-refur.livejournal.com/)'s. In a way. Don't blame her! Blame the following people for encouraging me, reading my craziness whole or piecemeal and letting me vent at them: [](http://cormallen.livejournal.com/profile)[**cormallen**](http://cormallen.livejournal.com/) (who was patient above and beyond the call), [](http://kkscatnip.livejournal.com/profile)[**kkscatnip**](http://kkscatnip.livejournal.com/), [](http://kassidy62.livejournal.com/profile)[**kassidy62**](http://kassidy62.livejournal.com/) and various and sundry others on my flist. My awesome beta was [](http://sloane-m.livejournal.com/profile)[**sloane_m**](http://sloane-m.livejournal.com/) and without her the misshapen tenses would have eaten you, never mind the rest of it.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
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Warnings: This story has bad stuff that may bother people. If you need to know what, check [this](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/51727.html) out. It has story spoilers, though.

 

The first thing Dean noticed was that the kid was huge. He must have been well fed once. Hell, if he were even a little more filled out now he'd be ox-sturdy, just hitch him up to your plow and go. But there were wide, dark hollows in his cheeks and around the collarbone that said louder than words that if he'd been fed up by someone it wasn't lately.

The second thing Dean saw was so obvious he didn't know how he'd missed it by the time he got up close enough to get a good look at the boy's head. There was the metal gleaming between his eyes and around his mouth where it sank down between his teeth, closing him up tight. A scold's bridle, sharp edges glistening in the sun, wet with the boy's sweat. Dean had seen them used before, but not often. Just when a slave needed their tongue good and sealed. The chains around the boy's wrists gleamed a matching silver. They were pulled taut against the railing behind them, like they were made as much to hold the boy up as to keep him in place.

Dean half expected to see defiance in his eyes when he got up closer, if only because someone had taken a lot of effort to keep him still and quiet and there had to have been a reason for that. But there was nothing, just a blank wall of hazel-green, murky in the bright sun. He didn't even grimace much where the bridle bit into his mouth and left a thin line of red and drool to slide down his chin. Didn't make a sound.

His gaze slid off of Dean's like he didn't see a thing. And that, that was what made Dean's nostrils flare, made him take one more step closer, until he was almost in touching range. The smell hit him like a wall, sweat, dried blood and waste, like no one had bathed this boy in a long time. Dean gagged and covered his mouth with his palm but he didn't step back.

"I'll give him to you for two hundred, but I have to warn you, might not be worth it," a voice called from too close behind Dean. Dean's hands were on his gunbelt and his smile was sharp edged when he turned around. The flesh dealer was a surprisingly small guy, maybe 5'5" on a good day, and reedy enough to look likely to blow over if you pushed hard. His palms were open and empty, where Dean could see them easy.

But he'd walked up to Dean way too close without Dean knowing he was there and there was something black and tight in his eyes that made Dean keep his hands on his gun. Just in case. There weren't many flesh dealers this far inland and this far North, even now that what was left of the government looked the other way for it, and all of them were dangerous.

"You like him, right?" the dealer said. His skin was dry and tight looking, as if he hadn't noticed they were under a baking sun that made a normal man sweat. "Two hundred's nothing, you can get a tank of gas for the same price as the boy. It's like I'm giving him to you."

Dean shrugged and stepped back, never mind that it brought him closer to the boy and his stink. "So, why would you sell him to me for that? Kid should last longer than a tank of gas."

The dealer laughed. His teeth were good, white and shiny as salt, like he never touched sweets. "Wanna know why he got sold off? It's cause he's one of them, you know. One of them crazy psychics." He leaned in closer to Dean. His breath smelled of spearmint, almost thick enough to taste. "He opens his mouth and he can call down curses. Last man who... well... it doesn't matter. We keep him bridled and you're safe as anything if you do the same."

"Two hundred, huh?" Dean turned and looked at the boy and tried not to wince. A psychic, huh? He hadn't known that-- the kid had never looked like a psychic. For all the good it did that poor bastard.

It didn't matter. The stench receded a little, maybe because the wind changed, maybe because Dean was getting used to it. He sucked in a breath. "You keep him bridled to eat too? Looks like he hasn't in a while."

The dealer laughed at that, bright as bells. The boy's eyes stayed the same, clear as glass and empty, reflecting the dirt. "You can get a straw into him. Liquid diet. He'll still last longer than a tank of gas."

"Dude," Dean muttered. "You ain't much of a salesman."

The dealer just laughed harder. "I'm just an honest man, last of the good guys. He ain't a lot of use, but he's some." He stepped up behind the boy and rested one narrow palm on his ass. The boy didn't flinch, barely moved. Dean had to squint to make sure he was breathing. He definitely didn't look like someone who'd ever had any kind of power. "This isn't as tight as it used to be but he won't fight. Better than a blow up doll, cheaper than a hooker."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Smells worse than either one. I don't get my jollies that way, dude."

"Really? Putting it to a psychic who can't fight back gets plenty of guys going. Having something that could kill you with a word on a normal day riding your dick without being able to do a damn thing about it. Not too many cheap thrills left in this world, but this is one." The dealer rubbed his palm over the kid's ass a few times like he was shining it, smooth and easy.

Dean watched that palm move. It was surprisingly pale against the boy's sallow, sun-stained skin. Watched it slide back and then down, with a sharp cracking noise on each buttock. The boy did move at that, and a choking, cut off whimper slipped out of his bridled mouth. The line of drool and blood on his chin turned redder.

"How do I know he's a real psychic?" Dean demanded, like it even mattered. The asshole was probably lying anyway.

"Well, you could always take off his bridle and see?" the dealer said, and smirked like he'd made a really funny joke. He stroked up the boy's spine, through the hollow, wasted knobs of bone, all protruding enough to be counted."I wouldn't recommend it, though. His last owner tried it and there wasn't enough left to bury the bastard. Boy went on a rampage through the whole damned house, turned it into a fucking abattoir. Only reason they got him at all was he was so damned busy killing the last fucking valet that the militia had time to call up one of their tame demons."

Dean opened his mouth like he was going to say fuck that sick shit. What came out instead was, "I'll take him for twenty. Hose him off first, though."

The dealer's expression lightened fast and easy. The guy was good, Dean hadn't even realized he'd been tense until the fear was gone. He stood up taller without it. "Good man," he said, and smacked the boy's ass one last time, leaving five reddened fingermarks to show he'd been there.

After that Dean wasn't at all surprised at how fast things happened. The hosing wasn't what he'd call thorough, but he could get near the boy without gagging by the time the dealer and his staff led him up to Dean's car.

Kid walked with a soft, shuffling kind of motion, best anyone could do with their ankles chained. His gaze was stuck firmly on the ground until they brought him up real close. Then there was something, maybe just the gleaming black of the Impala in the sunlight. The kid looked up and blinked. His eyes stayed blank, but his fingers moved, twitching forward enough to make his chains jangle.

The dealer waited, like Dean was going to pop the trunk for him or something. Dean didn't pay any attention, just pushed open the passenger side door and guided the kid inside, careful and easy, watching out for his head. The kid winced a little when his bare ass hit the seats, but there wasn't much Dean could do about that, so he ignored it. His hands didn't shake at all when they finally closed over the boy's skin to buckle him in, and he was obscurely proud of himself for that.

"You sure you want him that close?" the dealer asked dubiously.

"Dude, I can take care of myself," Dean muttered. "Gimme the keys to the chains, already."

The dealer counted them out, one by one, like they were more precious than the boy himself. Dean tapped his boot against the dirt and gritted his teeth. "What about the bridle?" he said.

The dealer shook his head. "Man, after what happened to the last guy? That thing is soldered on, good and proper. If you're crazy enough to want it off, get yourself to a welder, but personally I wouldn't bother."

Dean nodded and reached into his pocket. "Thanks for the tip," he said, and smiled. The dealer smiled back, was still smiling, wide and easy, when Dean put a bullet in his face. Dean nodded one more time, slid the gun home and climbed around to the driver's side. He hit the gas hard and popped in his least favorite tape of all time... fucking Nirvana. Fuck the 90's anyway.

The boy in the passenger seat never so much as flinched through any of it. But when the dealer's shop receded into the horizon behind him he craned his neck even though the motion seemed to hurt and gave Dean a long, solid look. Then he lay back down, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

"It's going to be okay," Dean whispered, but he doubted the words got through. Then he drove through the next six counties and stopped off by a closed and padlocked machine shop right off the highway. He took off the heavy chains first but the boy barely seemed to notice. He still shuffled when he walked. The bridle still gleamed in the fading evening sun.

It was one of the hardest jobs he'd pulled, getting that shit off without burning skin. Couldn't have done it at all if the boy hadn't been three times as still as normal person, just staring at the wall, palms loose in his lap. No reaction at all, not until two bits of metal clanked to the floor with a dull ring.

The boy blinked once, not at Dean, not at anything in particular, but maybe his eyes were more focused. Maybe.

Then he leaned over and threw up on the floor right next to him. Dean tried to touch his back, his shoulder, but the boy arched away and kept on heaving while thick, gut-wrenching noises shoved out of him that made Dean want to throw up himself. He sat there, just gagging and spitting, long past the point he was bringing anything up while Dean watched, fingers clenched to his sides, eyes burning.

When the kid finally stopped, Dean had a bottle of water open. Tepid stuff, but clean and pure. He let the boy swallow a capful, then another. When he opened his mouth, Dean had to force himself not to wince. There was blood on his tongue, probably worse than that. Dean didn't want to look, as if not looking would make it not real.

"Can you talk at all?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to hear an answer. The kid didn't even try, he just looked up at Dean and blinked. Dean shuddered and tried again. "Do you know your name?"

And, weirdly, just like that, the kid gave a twisted little half smile. Something flickered to life behind his eyes, hazel and endlessly clear. He prodded one stick and bone finger against Dean's chest, not quite touching, but close.

"Me? My name is Dean." The kid shook his head and prodded again. Dean frowned, and finally asked softly. "Do I know your name, is that what you mean?" The kid rolled his eyes, in a gesture that was stupidly, teeth-clenchingly familiar and nodded his head, like that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dean smiled back at him, like his stomach didn't ache. "Yeah, Sam," he whispered. "I do."

Sam looked at him, really looked and then shrugged in a ridiculously Sam gesture that Dean knew the meaning of without having to ask.

Good enough.   
\

Dean lost Sam on a Sunday morning between Sam's sophomore and junior year. The morning was a bright sunny one in late August. He remembered the clouds later, fluffy as cotton candy. He remembered the look on Sam's face when he shook Dean awake.

He'd been angry, Dean was sure he'd been angry, because who the fuck needed to be up at seven am on a Sunday? It just wasn't right. "Dude," he hissed, "If someone isn't dead--"

"I don't know. I think I hurt someone," Sam blurted out. He voice came out like a squeak, a teenager's half broken wail of a voice. "I had this dream and I-I didn't mean to, but Dean, I think... he's in the hospital, I think I put him in the hospital."

That was when Dean should have gotten the fuck up, because there were pranks out of Sam, sure, but not like that. That was when Dean should have sat up, grabbed on to Sam and done... whatever. Something. But he was tired and stupid and his head was pounding.

He covered his face with his pillow and groaned. "So, you hit some dumbass. Go the fuck to sleep, Sam. It'll be fine, we'll take care of it in the morning."

Sam might have tried to get his attention again, but Dean just hugged the pillow closer and pushed it up into his ears. He was tired. It could wait.

When he finally rolled out of bed, it was sometime after noon and Dad was sitting grim faced by the kitchen table, holding a note written in Sam's messy, loopy scrawl, like he was just waiting for Dean to show up.

"You have any idea where your brother might have gone if he were hiding out?" Dad asked softly, like he didn't expect much of an answer.

Dean didn't say a word, just grabbed the note out of his father's hand and stared at it, like the words were going to start to make some kind of sense, like they were going to start to bear some relationship to his Sam and not this crazy bullshit. He could almost feel his stomach tighten and twist, like he was a kid again and a striga was holding his little brother down over a bed.

_I think I killed him_, the note said. _I think it was me._

He looked, his dad looked, of course they both did. Only thing was, the world as everyone knew it started to end on a bright sunny Tuesday less than a week later and Sam was long gone by then.

\

 

Dean drove his brother up north, and tried not to think too hard about the mess that was Sam's mouth. Soft food, he figured, that would help. Any kind of food. Sam was down to nothing, wasted and withered as a man a hundred years old and he moved like that too, like everything hurt.

Dean didn't care as much as he should. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected Sam to be alive at all. Having him in the passenger seat, even quiet and still, with Dean's clothes hanging like sails from his shoulders, that was more than he'd ever have hoped to get. Sam looking at him every once in a while, with that twisty almost smile on his mouth like he was going to crack a bullshit joke any second, well that was all just bonus.

And, just like these were the old days, Dean started to talk, started to tell Sam what had happened since he'd been gone-- not the important stuff, but the hunts, the girls, that. It felt a little weird at first, but Sam just nodded along, like he'd used to, like Dad had used to do. Dean could have sworn he heard Sam's voice in the intervals, sly and bright, slipping in between the cracks of Dean's crazier stories.

Sam never did a thing to stop him until they came to a crossroads, just south of where Poughkeepsie used to be. Then, just like that, Sam's hand was on the wheel, guiding him to turn left instead of right. Back onto the highway. Sam's lips were pressed tight, but he wasn't shaking, wasn't giving any indication that this was the first time he'd actually reached out to make Dean do something, anything at all, since Dean had found him.

Go, Sam mouthed, and it was just as good as if he'd said it out loud. Dean drove. Kept on driving until his stomach growled and he had to pull over at some crazy ramshackle old diner off the interstate. It looked like it had barely survived the war but no one had the money to really fix it up. The smells coming out of it were good though and Dean didn't really give a fuck.

"Come on," he told Sam. "Let's get us fed." Sam didn't move. He just stared at Dean out of those damn hazel mirror eyes. Stared so blankly it was just like when he was still bridled, or worse. Dean sucked in his lower lip. "Sammy?"

Sam didn't blink. "What?" Dean demanded, leaning up into his face, but Sam didn't back away, didn't flinch. "Come on, dude, what's wrong?"

When the idea hit him, Dean felt like an idiot for not having thought of it before. He grabbed a pad and paper from the glove compartment and shoved it into Sam's cold, still fingers. Sam stared at it blankly for so long that Dean was just about to give up on that idea as useless too, when suddenly, jerkily, he began to move.

His handwriting had gotten worse, which Dean wouldn't have thought was possible, but it was definitely Sam's. Same crazy, loopy r's and w's.

_Who are you? Did he send you? Did she?_ Sam scrawled. Dean sucked in a whistling breath, but Sam wasn't done. His hand dug down hard, almost tearing the paper when he wrote. _If you belong to him, tell him I won't do it. You might as well have let me die. I won't do it._

Sam tore off the note and almost threw it at Dean's face before Dean had a chance to say a word. "Sam," he whispered. "You know me, right? It's Dean. Your Dean."

Sam stared at him out of fixed, unblinking eyes. Then he looked back at the ramshackle diner as if to point it out with his chin.

Dean didn't get a chance to ask because that was when the door swung open and a girl with eyes the color of ink strode on out, swaying her hips and smiling. She stopped when she saw the Impala, but just for a second, then her smile widened and she lifted her fingertips to her lips to blow them a kiss.

Sam made a sound, a low animal whimper, deep in his throat. He'd written angry words on the paper, yeah, but now he looked like he was ready to crawl into the seat if he could just hide his face. And that, that might have been one of the worst things Dean had ever seen short of buying his own brother from that damned flesh dealer.

"Hey, sweetheart," the demon girl called. She cupped her fingers around her mouth when she spoke. They were painted a bright, bright blood red. "You ready to be a good boy yet? Because we're ready to be a whole lot nicer to you if you are."

Dean knew what to do, of course he did. He had the Latin and the Greek all brushed up and ready to go. The look on Sam's face, though, that killed the words, made him choke them all down.

"Say the word, Sam," the girl said. Her voice was clear, like she wasn't even talking through window glass. "All you have to do is speak and the pain ends."

Sam made another sound, but this one was different. Lower, deeper. It was so dry and ruined it took a long moment for Dean to even guess what it was. Sam was laughing. Deep, ripping belly laughs that made him choke and gag, made Dean want to do anything to make him stop.

"You think you're funny?" the girl said, and her ink eyes narrowed. She took a step forward. "You're nothing but a fucking slave whore if you won't use your power. You're nothing at all."

Sam was laughing and then, just like that, he wasn't. He opened his mouth, wide and round, and showed the girl the ruins that had been his tongue. Dean almost gagged at the sight, the smell. Like raw meat that had barely stopped bleeding.

The girl hissed and just like that, Dean's hands were on the ignition and his foot was on the gas. He peeled out like gas was cheap and demons were chasing them even if he wasn't one hundred percent sure that they were.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered to Sam as he swerved the car back toward the highway. He checked out his rear view mirror but there was nothing, no one. "I didn't know, Sammy.  I'm sorry."

Sam didn't look at him, he was just looking ahead. Blank-eyed and rocking back and forth almost too slowly to notice, hands clenched into something that were almost claws, covering the ruin of his mouth.

Dean drove and drove and didn't stop until Sam touched the wheel again and made him stop outside of a town where all the lights still looked like they were on. "I'm not one of them, Sam," Dean whispered when they pulled up next to a whitewashed motel with a few cars parked in front. "I swear, man."

Sam shrugged. He got out of the car under his own power, but Dean had to catch him by the elbow to support him before he'd gone more than two steps. Sam's face turned blank and numb when Dean grabbed him, like walking and breathing was taking all the concentration that he had.

Sam let him lead the way, let him check them in to a room and grab a couple of take out menus, all without so much as looking at Dean. Dean figured it was going to be more of the ignoring him scene, which he could deal with if he had to. He figured that right up until they got to the room and Sam waited until he went to the bathroom.

It took about two seconds after Dean came out for him to feel the knife's point against his artery. He could hear Sam behind him, breathing hard, shaking with the strain. Weak, so weak Dean was sure he could take him. Assuming, of course, Sam didn't get that single, vital cut in first. And wouldn't it figure, bleeding out in a cheap ass motel, done in by the very brother he'd spent the better part of five years trying to run to ground.

It wasn't funny but Dean laughed anyway. In the back of his head he wondered if he sounded all that different laughing from the way Sam had when that demon bitch had told him all he had to do was speak. He didn't know, he really didn't care, but for whatever twisted reason, maybe it was enough for Sam himself.

Sam let the knife slide down, just barely grazing skin. It was a good blade, sweet edged, and it kissed a line of red down Dean's throat, just a few beads of blood, just enough to show it could have gone in all the way. Dean turned around, slow and easy, palms out to show they were empty, that he was no threat, could never be a threat but Sam had already stopped looking at him. He gave no more sign of why he'd taken the knife off of Dean than why he'd pulled it on him to begin with. No sign of much of anyone home at all. Instead he was cradling the knife against one palm, running his fingers up and down the carving on the hilt with his fingertips.

Dean knew that knife, of course he did. It was his favorite, the one he always kept close to hand. Sam had probably pulled it right from the top compartment of his dufflebag. The one that used to be Sam's before his brother disappeared because no one had ever made it sing as well as Sam could, as sweetly.

"It missed you," Dean whispered in a hoarse, cracked out tone that surprised him. "Bet it's glad to have you back, Sammy."

Sam didn't look at him, just kept on cradling the knife, making low, unintelligible noises while he ran over the runes carved in deep. Protection, well wishing, true strike. Everything Dean had ever wanted for Sam, dug into ivory and bone.

"I sure am glad to have you back even if you are pulling knives on me. Seriously uncool dude, but.. but... we're probably going to need to talk about the demon shit. Or write. Whatever." Dean scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck. "I can't do anything about it if I don't know what's going on, you know that right?"

If Sam heard a word he said, he didn't react. After a while, what seemed like forever, he did let Dean guide him down to sit on the bed. Dean just started at him, just watched until he couldn't anymore, then he called for take-out.

"You'll feel better when you've eaten," he told Sam like he thought Sam might be listening. "And then we'll haul you off to a doctor, see about your mouth and... whatever else." Dean tried not to wince, remembering the way the fucking flesh dealer had talked, the way Sam flinched when he sat down.

"We'll fix it. You'll feel better. You'll be fine."

Sam let the knife balance in his palm and crooned to it, like he'd used to croon to that stupid stuffed pink panda he'd cradled when he was two. Dean put his palms over his face and didn't cry, didn't, not even if his hands got wet and all he could taste was salt.

When the food came, Dean stopped, scrubbed his face and paid the kid that brought it with a pair of greasy old world copper coins and some new world paper. Sam was asleep, curled up on the bed fetal style. Dean's shirt had ridden up his stomach and back until it was practically to his arm pits. It showed off bruises, cuts and scars from things Dean didn't want to know about.

There was one mark tucked right up against Sam's left hip. It was red, like something just made. The bright, perfectly round imprint, like a set of teeth too sharp and even to be human had sunk into flesh and held on hard.

Dean sucked in another hard breath and went to find his dad's journal. There was one section, well thumbed. His Dad's handwriting was like Sam's, right down to the crazy loops and the hard tearing words when he was pissed off.

There was a picture pasted in at the bottom of one page, of teeth marks, perfectly even and round. Almost human, but not quite. _Devil's Mark_, Dad had scrawled in his angriest hand, the pen almost tearing right through. _Seen on humans that fuck demons. Look out for witches or you'll never see them coming._

Dean closed the book, carefully, but emphatically. He almost expected Sam to move, the sound rang that loud in his ears. Sam, though, Sam kept right on sleeping.

_Look out for witches,_ Dean heard, in his Dad's voice. Steady soft. _Or you'll never see them coming._

He heard his own voice in return, young, he'd been young. Sam had just been a kid, sweet smelling, innocent. Safe in bed. _What if they don't want to do it, Dad? What if it's not their fault a demon did that?_

And his Dad had just shrugged, deadly serious and looked Dean right in the eye. _You can't get a mark like that from a rape. You'll never see an innocent victim with a mark like that. You watch the fuck out for witches, Dean, because anything innocent out of their mouths is a lie._

"You didn't watch out, Dad," Dean whispered out loud. "That's why you're fucking dead."

Sam whimpered and shifted in his sleep, low and anguished, like someone was hurting him right in front of Dean's eyes. The shirt slid back down, hiding the mark away.

\   
Dean would never have said, never even thought that he'd given up on Sam. Even in the worst days when things were chaos, the East Coast cities were all at least half flooded and the fucking flu was killing its way up and down the country and worse outside of it.

His dad gave up, Dean knew that. Fucking fatalist. Not that Dean cared, but it was hard when things were crazy and it seemed like everyone was dying everywhere. No one to help Dean find one missing kid when their own kids and brothers and sisters were choking to death, swallowing chunks of their own lungs upstairs.

After, when he'd had help, when being a hunter started to actually mean something to the blind, useless fucks around them... things were different, the whole world was different. So, it wasn't that he gave up, wasn't that he'd stopped looking, but when that crazy blonde made herself at home in the booth across from his at some diner and grinned at him, pretty as a nail, well. By then, Dean had learned not go around expecting things anymore.

"You're Dean Winchester," she said. "Demon killer, ghost hunter, all around make the dark a little safer boy, right?"

Dean blinked. "Is this like, a groupie thing?" he said and gave her his stickiest grin back. "Because I could theoretically be interested."

She rolled her eyes. "Ha. Ha. I was just wondering if you were the Dean Winchester who was looking for a kid, about nineteen or twenty. Beanpole, hazel eyes and a big mouth that possibly lands him into all kinds of trouble." She grabbed a handful of Dean's fries and stuffed them into her mouth in the moments of silence while he tried to process what the fuck she'd just said.

"Who are you? Why should I believe you?" he finally sputtered out.

She talked to him right through a mouthful of fries, like he would have done to Sam when they were kids. Like Sam would have tried to punch him for. "You can call me Ruby, baby. And why? Well, I dunno, anyone else lining up to deliver him to you gift wrapped?"

She leaned in real close. "Believe me, Dean, where he is, you don't want to spend a lot of time hesitating before getting him out."

The real bitch of it was that of course she was right, no one else was delivering Sam, no one else even had a clue. Dean would never have admitted Sam was gone, really gone for good, but he wasn't expecting to ever have him in the passenger seat or asleep over in the next bed either. Not until he next saw him, even like that, chained to the wall in some flesh dealer's shack.

\

Dean sat and watched Sam sleep because he couldn't even think about sleep himself. He wasn't even sure if sleep was better if Sam was anything to go by. Sam's mouth was pressed tight even in his sleep and the sounds that came out of it were too mangled to be words and too vicious to mean anything good. At least Sam was here instead of there-- wherever he was dreaming about.

At least there was that much.

He tried waking Sam when the dreams first started, tried comforting him in his sleep. It used to be easy enough for Dean to do both, either. Sam had been a ridiculously good kid when he was little, would curl up close and just fall back asleep. Even when he got older and turned nervous, started to hate the dark, he'd still be happy enough to let Dean sit next to him and tell him stories, make sure he was safe.

Not like this Sam. This Sam who jerked and whimpered like he was being tortured anytime Dean got within touching range and went still and huddled like a rabbit if actual hands were laid on him, even in his sleep. Maybe he was right to be scared too. It wasn't like Dean wasn't thinking really hard about shoving him awake and screaming himself. God, he needed to scream.

Scream a lot and not quit, at least until he got the name of the fucking demon Sam had sold himself to in order to get that mark on his hip. Fuck. Fucking demon indeed. Dean shuddered and buried his face back between his palms.

"Just sleep," he mumbled, not sure if it was to Sam or himself. "Fuck's sake. Just do it." Sam slept, even disturbed and distracted, crying in his dreams. Sam slept and Dean sat and watched and watched and couldn't do a damned thing.

Dean almost fell asleep himself around the time it started to get lighter, or at least grayer, outside. He founded himself nodding, eyelids heavy, almost gone. At first he thought he was dreaming, that he had to be dreaming when the bed started to shift under him. Slow and easy, like a rocker. Gentle.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes and when his vision cleared he was on a bed that was floating. "Fuck me," he hissed. He didn't have time to do much more, to react, before the bed settled itself back to the ground with a soft, slippery moan.

Then there was Sam, still huddled in on himself and whimpering in his sleep. Sam, blanket and all, floating like a vision out of a dream. Dean reached for him on sheer instinct, but he was too far to grab.

"Sam," Dean said out loud, louder than he'd meant to. Sharper. "Wake up, dude. Sam."

Sam didn't wake. But his body slipped down, slow and careful as if Dean himself were carrying it, arranging itself on the very edge of Dean's bed, well into touching range. Sam's eyelids looked so black in the dark, bruised. They fluttered one more time, like Sam was still dreaming, and then they stilled and gentled.

Dean's eyes widened enough to strain. With one trembling hand he reached out to touch Sam's shoulder. Just a little, carefully, like his mom had used to pet him when he was little and afraid, like he'd used to pet little Sammy because she wasn't there to do it. With the other, he reopened his father's journal.

Witches. Witches could fly.

Sam made another soft sound in his sleep, but it was different, gentler. He pushed himself up into Dean's touch and then his breathing evened out, like he'd slid into a real, dreamless sleep. "It's okay," Dean soothed and he could have sworn that Sam smiled in his sleep, almost.

Dean still wasn't crying. It was just the pages of Dad's journal were getting blurry in front of his eyes. He wasn't waterworks boy and he refused to turn into that even if he could hear Sam in his head, the way Sam had used to sound when he had a voice.

_You cry all the time, Dean,_ Sam's voice taunted him, young and laughing. _Any day now, you're going to grow moss like a tree in the rain forest._

Fuck you, you cry more, Dean told the Sam in his head. You cry in your sleep.

Sam in his sleep didn't even twitch at that.

Witches could move things with their minds, even bodies. Witches could fucking _fly_. Sam cried in his sleep and there was nothing Dean could do about it, just stroke his shoulder and bring him in closer until Sam's head was practically resting on his knee.

\   
In the morning, Sam didn't say a-- didn't make a noise about how he'd ended up on Dean's bed. He just had yesterday's glassy stare from the second he opened his eyes until Dean put last night's take-out in front of him. Soft, mushy food and drinks with calories, probably not exactly appetizing, but Dean didn't care.

"Don't roll your eyes at me, dude," he told Sam as if Sam might answer. "You look like one of those starving kid pics on the 'Net television after the second wave Atlanta flu, you gotta eat."

Dean didn't expect much of a reaction, so he almost cheered when he did get an eyeroll, like Sam was being oh-so-put-upon, having to deal with him. Dean just pushed a spoon and a drink into Sam's hand, and tried not to look when Sam ate

"I know a doctor who owes me a favor," he said, about five minutes of silence after Sam finished eating and started pushing the food around with his spoon like a guy who didn't look like he was starving to death. "We'll get you looked at."

If Sam heard him he didn't do anything to show it this time, just kept looking blankly at the pile of food he'd built up in one corner of the plate. Dean sighed and rubbed his palm against the back of his neck. "We're going to stop for supplies first, though," he said. "I saw a church down the road and if we're going to have demons down on our ass like the other day, I seriously need to invest in holy water."

Just like that, Sam put the spoon down, got up and tottered over to the duffel where Dean kept his knife. Dean held his breath, but Sam got all the way there without swaying very much at all, like maybe he was feeling better. When Sam pulled out his favorite knife and the ankle sheath from its hiding place, Dean knew for sure he was feeling better.

Sam didn't spare him a second glance, but his fingers were fast and didn't shake at all when he fastened the knife to his leg.

When they walked in, the church was so empty it echoed. It was like that more and more these days, at least in the towns where the church wasn't brimful and overflowing. No more in between sometimes church goers to stand between the faithful and the nonbelievers these days, people either gave up on God or threw themselves in the bastard's lap. Dean thought it was frankly ridiculous, but no one was asking him.

Anyway, an empty but fully equipped church was the best place he could think of to get gear for a demon hunt. Or a defense against the ugly fuckers, whatever they needed.

Dean was so busy scoping the place for equipment, he almost missed the slim figure in black that had stepped out from behind the altar. He only caught it out of the corner of his eye and then jumped back from the holy water font, stepping up so he was as close to Sam as he could get without touching him and pasting on his best smile.

"Hello, Father," he said before he got a good luck at the figure in the Priest's vestments. A woman, slim as a needle, with pale blonde hair and dark eyebrows, topped off with the smarmiest grin Dean had ever seen outside of a mirror. A woman he knew a little too well.

"Father? That's a new one for me, baby," she said and grinned. She dipped her fingers into the chalice she was holding and lifted them out again, sucking the red wine off her fingertips. "Good to see you again."

"Ruby?" Dean muttered, shaking his head in real disbelief. "What the hell is up with that get-up?"

He took a step forward and almost didn't hear the sound from Sam. The deep, dry noise that passed for his brother's laughter now. Or tears, because it wasn't like Dean could tell the difference these days.

Ruby laughed too, bright and easy and held out a chalice and wafer in open hands. "Blood and body of Christ?" she offered, like she was offering fries with that. "It's good for what ails you."

"What the fuck, Ruby?" Dean demanded again, but she wasn't looking at him. That was when he realized she was looking right past him.

"Come on, Sam," she said, and her voice was almost gentle. "You trusted me this far and it's turned out as well as it could, right? Trust me one further. Take this cup from me, love."

"I think you'd better tell me what the fuck--" Dean began, but he didn't have a chance to finish.

Sam walked right past him, faster than he had any right to do in the state he was in. Not too fast for Dean to grab at him. Or at least Dean would have grabbed at him. "You can stop right there," Ruby said and Dean wouldn't have paid any attention to that shit at all, except her eyes.

Black as ink, the color of her vestments. He would have screamed at her, run at her, but suddenly he couldn't move at all and his voice was caught up his throat like he was Sam, tongue torn to bits and speechless. Sam.

Sam didn't turn around, he strode right over and then stopped, an arm's length away from where Ruby stood with her chalice and wafer.

"You want this?" Ruby offered softly. Dean didn't know what he expected, not really, but his next breath was all relief when Sam shook his head sharply and made a way too familiar gesture with his middle finger. Ruby just laughed. "Okay, next question. Do you need this?"

Sam was way too slow, Dean could see that even from here. He telegraphed the next move, the way he leaned back to grab his knife. Dean would have knocked the fucker right out of his hands. Ruby did it so fast that Dean missed it between blinks, just heard the sound of the knife clattering to the floor.

She stopped laughing anyway, even if only for a second. Her mouth smoothed out into an expression Dean didn't know what to make of. "Come on, Sam," she said, and if she weren't a demon Dean would have called her tone kindness. Seduction. "Me or Azazel. You already know enough about him to know we aren't exactly two sides of the same coin."

Sam shook his head again. When Dean strained his neck he could see Sam's mouth moving, even if there wasn't any sound. Ruby though, she nodded her head like she could hear every word.

"You have a beautiful face, that's why," she said, like she was answering a question. "It really could have launched a thousand demonic ships. What do you want to bet that brother Dean over there agrees with me on that one, too?" She grinned and touched Sam's cheek lightly. Sam glared at her, but didn't flinch, not the way he flinched away from Dean every time, except last night when he was asleep. "As poor lord and master Azza is discovering, substitutions just will not do. All is dross that is not Samuel."

Sam drew a step back, but she was faster. So much faster than Sam, than anything Dean had ever seen. Cup in hand, hand on his mouth and Dean didn't have time to move at all before she was forcing the contents down his brother's throat.

"Believe in me," she hummed. "And be healed."

Sam shoved her hard, spitting out wine, spilling what was left in the chalice across the stones of the floor. "Fuck you," he spat. His voice was rougher and harder than the boy Dean remembered. A man's voice. "Fuck you, fuck you." Dean knew he was staring, couldn't see anything but Sam's mouth. No more mess, all the red on him was just wine, like he'd never been hurt at all.

"Come on, you already did," Ruby said. "Gotta admit you were good too." She clucked at the mess on the floor and lifted up the discarded cup, before setting it gently back on the altar. "I was better, though."


	2. The Devil's Mark (2/6)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **The Devil's Mark (2/6)** _

See [Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html) for headers and such  
  
[Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html)/[Part Two](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52308.html)/[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)/[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)/[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)/[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)

 

Interlude

 

He's cold when he meets her for the first time. He's always cold, bone chilled and bare. The soles of his feet ache, as if he'd been walking a long, long way.

She glows in the dark. That's the first thing he sees in her, that she's like one of those green plastic stars his brother had bought him at the dollar store when they were kids, the kind you could paste like a constellation on a cheap motel ceiling. She doesn't shine, but she glows, dull in the dark.

His hands twist in their chains and his lips move, numb around a gag. The sounds and creaks are familiar, almost soothing. He doesn't know she's not more of the same, one new creative torture, one more straw to place on his back. Even now, he doesn't know for sure that she's not that.

She smiles when their eyes meet. Her teeth are perfect, like a Hollywood star. It's the only feature he can really see enough to focus on through her glow.

"So, you're the little boy that's been giving a Duke of Hell so much trouble," she says. There's a stool a little way out of his reach-- out of what would be his reach even if he could move. They usually sit there, when they come for him, at least at first. They don't sit for long.

She takes it in one hand, lifting it easily, but she doesn't sit down. She drags it closer instead, closer until they're almost touching and drops it with a clatter. Sam would roll his eyes, but it just makes him itch. There's something on them, dried and crusty, that he doesn't want to think about.

"Azazel thinks you haven't got much fight left in you," she says, casual and bright. "He's probably right. You're a damned stubborn kid, but the body's finite and all we've got is time."

He wants to laugh, wants to say something like, tell me about it, but he's still gagged good and tight, has been for so long he's not sure he could start talking even if it was off. She smiles again and stands up, close enough that he can almost focus on her eyes, close enough to taste her breath, like some sick combination of perfume and sulfur.

"What's his deal again? His offer you can't refuse?" she asks, like she's expecting an answer out of his gagged mouth. She nods to herself, like he really did say something. "Oh yeah. Bow your head in submission, and you get out of this hell hole, right? You get food, a nice comfortable place to stay, fuck, a bath. Maybe even your family back if you're really good. Okay, Sam, what do you say to that?"

His hands twitch. His neck stays straight, like a ramrod, like a marine. His dad would have laughed at that, called him too fucking disobedient to be any damn marine. She laughs too, peals of it. "Yeah," she says agreeably. "I never bent my neck to anybody either. I like that about you."

She touches him. Hand on his hip, light and delicate, shouldn't be confining, but he's chained too tight to even jerk away. His muscles twitch reflexively and his gag stifles a whimper. Her teeth shine in the dark and her touch turns into a caress. "Seriously, though, Sam. You're still only human. How much longer do you really think you're going to last?"

He wants to shrug. His mouth hurts. At least he can't smell himself anymore. She sighs. "Right, these one sided conversations are never fair," she says. Sam blinks. Her hands are on his neck, they feel cool and dry and endlessly clean. He's too numb to feel the gag slide out from between his teeth, but he can hear it thud to the ground, the weight of thick, reinforced leather on plaster.

The air tastes sour and he chokes when he draws in a full breath of it, but it's surprisingly good.

"You--" he bites out, but the words dissolve into a coughing fit. Nasty hacking coughs that feel like his lungs are tearing. She touches his wrists, where the chains have wound him tight and they fall away. He's falling, no grace in it, just going down like a felled oak, spitting and hacking.

She catches him and puts him on his knees, carefully if not gently. She kneels down next to him and waits for the fit to pass. There's spit and bile on his mouth by the time his lungs stop heaving. He tries to wipe it away with his palm, but the filth on that doesn't help much, just makes him retch one more time.

"Sam," she says, and her voice is calm, kind and antiseptic, like a shrink. "Your father's dead and beyond anyone's calling and your brother's pretty sure that you are. You know by now that no one's coming for you, right?"

His lips compress and he doesn't nod, but he thinks she hears the yes anyway. It's a dull hurt, her words. They'd told him about his father a long time ago, brought him the bones, burnt and cracked to make sure he had no doubt. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asks. His voice sounds cracked open, a crater in a desert.

"You can call me Ruby. I don't want anything much." She smiles. "Just you. Body and soul."

"Just like him. Azazel," he says. A name. He hadn't even realized his tormentor had a name until she came and gave him one.

"No," she says. She presses her hand over his, but doesn't keep it there when he flinches away. "I'm not in the business of breaking the will of my friends."

Sam can't help it. He laughs, even though it hurts, even though it sends his torn throat back into spasms. "Your friends," he gasps.

"I could be friends with someone with a neck as stiff as yours. I won't force you, not to anything. Consider your alternatives."

Sam shakes his head. "I could stay here. Azazel hasn't forced me to do anything yet either." Not true, the sore, broken places on his body whisper. Not true, but maybe true enough.

"He will," she says, sure and steady. Sam squeezes his eyes shut. "Sam," she says, with that painful, honest gentleness. "Tell me something, okay? And if you can answer this question I'll believe you can resist until you're dead and I'll go away."  
"What?" he bites out, eyes still closed. "What do you want?"

"Tell me," she says. "Just one little thing and I'll believe you, I'll believe in you. Your brother. What's your brother's name? What's your father's?"

Sam's head snaps up and he opens his mouth to answer, of course he's going to answer. He just needs a second. He just needs... he closes his mouth slower than he opened. He can taste salt on his lips. Blood and bile and sweat. Tears. She puts her hands on his chin and raises it up so that their eyes are meeting and this time he's too tired to flinch.

"What do you want me to do?" he whispers. His eyes sting and he can't stop blinking. Her fingertips run over his cheeks, rubbing salt water into his skin.

She's smiling again. Maybe it's a smug smile, but he can't tell for sure. "All you have to do is let me give you the power to resist. Maybe even get out of here, if you're smart about it."  
His mouth quirks into an almost smile despite everything. "Sure, okay. You do that."

"Sam," she says, and he can't help but look into her eyes. There's something there, deep down. Blue and endless, like cold water. "Do you know how a human can gain a demon's power? Do you know how a person becomes a witch?"

He shrugs. "You mean besides sitting their ass on a demon's dick?" Her hands feel warm against his face, and for half a second he remembers what it's like to not be scared. "Been there, done that. The witch thing didn't take." It doesn't hurt as much as he expected to say it out loud, not to her.

"Rape doesn't count. The act isn't enough, you also have to consent to it." She rolls her eyes, looking like nothing so much as a bored teenager. He wonders if he ever looked like that, if his dad ever wanted to smack it off his face. His dad, who is dead, who probably wouldn't want a ruined son even if he weren't.

There are a thousand crazy thoughts running through Sam's mind and he can't nail down any of them, until the loudest slips through his lips. "What about her?" he blurts out.

She lifts an eyebrow. "Her who?"

"You said there had to be consent," Sam says and wonders why the hell this is what he's thinking now. "The woman whose body you're using, does she consent? She okay with this?"

She laughs again, solid and bright. "That?" she splutters. "Is that what's bothering you? Poor, dumb kid. Okay, one time special offer. Let's do this with me showing you my real face."

He barely has a moment to anticipate, to be scared. He doesn't know what a demon's real face would be like, even now. He doesn't know if there will be tentacles, horns, tails, something out of a gothic nightmare or something worse.

In a way, it's worse. His eyes are open and the light in hers is so bright it almost burns them out.

There are wings. White and beautiful, feathery soft against his skin. Wings and yellow hair. A smile, sweet. "What do you think?" she asks, but the voice isn't a woman's, not really. The body is naked and shining, curved in places and hard in others. A body that wants his. "Will a fallen angel do for you, Sam Winchester?"

For a second, its like he's gagged again. He sees, he can see, but he can't find words. He's cold. Fuck, he's so cold and so bare. Alone. And she... he... is beautiful, when Sam's not.

He's still shaking. His body aches, deep down. "I want them not to have touched me," he confesses. It's like letting something crack, confessing it. If it hurts, they got to him. If it hurts, he's as close to broken as she says he is. If it hurts, they made him bleed. They made him bleed so much. "I want to make them sorry they touched me."

She smiles, and it's like light. There's a warm mouth on Sam's forehead, like someone kissing a child goodnight. "Don't be scared," she murmurs to him. "What else do you want?"

"I—I--" It's the stupidest thing, but he remembers, he remembers the brother whose name he can't even-- He remembers his brother soothing him like that. "I don't want to be scared. I want my brother."

"Come here, then," she coaxes. Her fingers are gentle in the filthy tangles of his hair. He opens his arms and she pulls him in. Her wings are soft and heavy, like a thick blanket, sliding over his shoulders and covering him up.

He can hear a pulse racing through them, he can feel light, smell sunshine, like he's outside laying on the green grass, toes bare and spread out in the earth. "It's warm," he whispers. "I never... before I was here. With anyone."

"Don't cry," she tells him, and it feels like an order, one he wants to hear. Her hands are gentle along the length of his spine, curling and caressing, like a woman's hands, but too broad to be a woman's. He can feel the sweet curve of her breasts pressing against his chest. The blunt length of a cock pressed against his hip, hard and wet at the tip. It should be terrifying, but it's not. "You do me honor," she tells him. His teeth are chattering even with all her warmth and he can't say anything at all.

It should hurt, it always hurts, but it doesn't. Her hands are on him, gentling him where he's shaking. Her wings slide up and pull him closer until he's straddling her thighs. There's not even an ache or a burn when he spreads his legs and slides down onto her. It's smooth and slow and makes him gasp when he's all the way down, balls pressed against skin.

"You're the justice in my quarrel," she whispers in his ear. "Say you want me." He shivers and his teeth are still clacking until she kisses him and warms his mouth. "Sam," she says, firm and steady and all he can hear. "Say yes."

"Yes," he says, and her kiss swallows him up. Wet, relentlessly, inhumanly hungry, like something starved for a million years. She pushes him down on the ground, and it should be hard on his knees, should hurt, but her wings are soft and heavy and blanket out the cold and the pain he only half remembers.

He doesn't even know how hard he is, only half realizes there is anything at all except the fullness of her inside him, until his cock slaps up against his stomach, once, twice and he spills, hot and wet over his own chest.

She laughs, low and rich, and moves inside him. She's relentless, endless, hands on his hips, mouth on the back of his neck, licking words and symbols, cutting them onto his skin through the remains of his own blood and sweat and terror.

He loses his mind while she's still inside him, thrust by thrust, until his dick is sore and soaked from coming, his thighs are sticky everywhere and he's still so hard he wants to cry. He thinks he does cry when she pulls out of him, leaving him spreadeagled and spent on the ground, shaking and shaking.

The only hot places on him are his arms where her wingtips keep brushing, feather soft and the flesh of his hip, right above his ass where she bites down, hard, until he's screaming and arching into it. The place where her teeth sank in throbs like it's burning even when she pulls away. His feet twitch, and his hands scrabble against the floor, like he's going to find something to cling to down there if he tries hard enough, but otherwise he doesn't move.

Her wings slide over the slick, fucked out mess of his ass and he twitches again, makes a sound that's nothing human, nothing like himself. She turns him over onto his back like he's a toy and he can't even look at her, can't meet her eyes.

"Come here," she says, and catches him when he tries to crawl away. This time she's the one sliding down onto him, cunt instead of cock. His dick moves feebly into her and he shakes his head over and over, almost thrashing with the overload, but she just kisses the tears from his eyelids.

"We're almost done," she whispers to him while he cries. Her wings flap over them, moving gently and drying the sweat and semen on his skin. "You've been so good. You'll get what you wanted. Get to hurt the people who hurt you, you do that first. And then--"

"Then," he begs, shocked to hear himself. Rough and broken sounding. "Then what?"

"Then," she kisses his swollen, bitten mouth quiet. "Then... your brother's name is Dean. And the thing he wants the most in the world is to have you back." Sam closes his eyes and forgets to ask her what it is that she wants.

[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)


	3. The Devil's Mark (3/6)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **The Devil's Mark (3/6)** _

See [Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html) for headers and such  
  
[Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html)/[Part Two](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52308.html)/[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)/[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)/[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)/[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)

 

  
Dean didn't catch the exact moment when Ruby's attention slipped off him and he could move again, but he was more than ready. He could breathe right and it was pure relief, even with the crazy demon bitch and screaming Sam and all. Screaming, spitting mad Sam beat staring at the wall Sam by a margin Dean didn't even want to think about.

"You fucked me over," Sam shouted. Dean heard the sharp sound of something breaking to pieces while he sneaked around the back. Holy water font had to be here somewhere. "You lied to me and you fucked me over like I was a fucking chess pawn."

Ruby's voice sent a shudder down through Dean's skin. She sounded like it was funny, like she thought these were good times. "Lying's kinda what I'm known for, man. But, if you actually think this one through, I didn't. You did get out and you did get to Dean, just like I promised you."

Dean bit his lower lip and concentrated on filling up a cup with the holy water. He figured he was going to get one shot at this while Sam was yelling and Ruby was... not smiting, whatever. One shot was going to have to be enough.

"Am I supposed to be grateful or something? I won't do it, whatever you want me to do," Sam said. "I didn't do it for Azazel and I sure as fuck won't do it for you."

"Sam," Ruby said, softly, like the words meant something. "You don't know what I need you for, not yet. Doing things is just a bonus. You're the evidence. The justice in my quarrel."

Sam made a painfully familiar snorting sound, like he was listening to Dean explain how to get a girl to open her jeans in three easy steps. The sound made Dean flinch in place, almost spilling the water over his hands.

She was touching his brother, just a glancing touch, on the arm, but Sam had flinched from less when Dean tried it and he barely seemed to notice this. Dean had to wait for him to back off and give up the space Dean needed to get a good angle. "Quarrel?" Sam asked. "With who? Azazel?"

"No." She was smiling when Dean snuck around to the side, to get behind her, get a better angle. "I have older arguments than that. I'm just the argumentative type, I guess."

Dean threw the water. It was dead on, a perfect shot, should have burned her eyeballs out of her head and made her scream.

The last thing Dean expected was for her to just stare blankly at him when she got a cup full of holy water in the face. Just stare, and then blink water off her eyelashes. "Huh," she said. "Ow. Speaking of arguments. That itches a little."

Sam was staring too, but Dean was used to that by now, it was nothing like seeing a demon that could shrug off holy water and keep smiling away. Sam turned around, turned and looked at Dean out of big hazel-green eyes.

"Dean," Sam said, like he was irritated, like he didn't know what to do with the feeling anymore. That was a first. Sam, saying Dean's name, and Dean getting to hear it from Sam's mouth for the first time in years.

And, yeah, okay there was a demon to deal with too, a demon who'd fucked with-- worse than that-- his brother. So Dean didn't wait, just put himself between Sam and her. It was crazy, just him and his empty hands, Latin prayers and whatever else he could pull up, but it was Sam. Her eyes were demon dark when they met his and she grinned, like she could hear exactly what he was thinking.

"Spare me from the loyal solider act, Dean. There's something I want to show you boys, if you can get yourselves over to old Harvard Yard. If you're interested in finding out something about your daddy and maybe stopping the world from ending."

"I know about my dad. He's dead," Dean said and then flinched when he realized that Sam's voice had risen to match his. Said the same words at the same time, that somehow Sam knew. He would have bet anything that Sam was staring at him the way he wanted to look at Sam, but he wasn't going to take his eyes off Ruby long enough to check.

"He did a lot before he died. He was a messenger," she said like she was answering Dean, but it was Sam she was looking at. "Sam," she said and held out one hand. "Will you come?" Dean heard the sharp intake of breath behind him. Sam stepped forward so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Dean and it was all Dean could do not to muscle him back, especially when Sam lay his hand over Ruby's.

His hand shook visibly, but he didn't flinch. "Why doesn't it hurt when I touch you?" Sam's voice was too quiet, softer than it should be. He sounded all of three and broken-hearted. Dean wanted to... something. Hug him like a little kid or like he was sound asleep like he'd been last night, but of course that actually would make Sam flinch.

"I'm not the one making it hurt, Sam," Ruby said, just as softly. It made Dean want to growl because who the hell was she to say that, to offer some kind of... of pity.

"Well, I'm definitely not doing it!" Sam hissed, another glass shard of an echo of a teenage Sam in that anger.

"Harvard Yard, Sam," Ruby repeated, like Sam hadn't said a word. "It's still above water, you know. You can get a flat-boat over the Bay to get there."

"Why there?" Dean finally asked, because Sam wasn't going to and there wasn't anything else he could see to get that demon away from him.

"There's something interesting, boys," Ruby said and showed her fine, even teeth. Dean tried not to mentally match them up to the mark over Sam's hip, tried not to see them superimposed and biting down. He managed not to shudder. "Sitting smack dab on the hub of the world. If you think the world around you now is bad, wait 'til you get a good look at what can come out of there."  
"Something worse than you?" Sam asked, in that awful, stretched thin voice.

Ruby took the hand she was holding and lifted it to her lips, kissing Sam's knuckles gently before Dean had the chance to shove her off. "Nothing can be worse than me, Sam," she said. "You know that." When Dean tried to touch her there was nothing there, just air and vapor.

Sam stared at the spot where she'd been and Dean stared at Sam, watching his brother breathe without there being obvious pain behind every lungful of air. He fucking hated demons and he wasn't sure if he hated them just a little more because of the burst of something that felt too much like being grateful twisting up in his gut. Especially when Sam stopped looking for Ruby and started looking at Dean, hard eyed with this weird, hungry look that Dean couldn't remember ever having seen outside of a mirror.

"So, were you going to write me a note about that anytime soon?" Dean asked, shoving the words right past the twistedness. Sam, Sam was here. Sam was here and talking and looking at Dean like he could see him.

"I don't know," Sam said. "I think I have to go to Cambridge, though."

"We," Dean said without pausing. "Don't give me this I shit, asshole."

"Dean, there's all this shit I can't tell you. Stuff I don't even know and stuff that I-- I can't," Sam said and the expression on his face was so Sam, so Dean's earnest, tired brother, that for a second Dean forgot. Forgot and reached for him, just to touch and remember he was there with his body instead of just his eyes.

Two hands on Sam's shoulders and when Dean's useless brain caught up with the rest of him he expected Sam to jump or wince or scream or any of the other things stray touch had been making him do.

This was worse. Sam's eyes squeezed tight and he stayed where he was, absolutely still, breathing in and out, slow, so slow. Like Dad had taught them to do, to resist panic or torture. Dean was the one who jumped back so hard he almost hit the wall.

"I'm sorry," Dean said, loud and sharp and horror thick. "I didn't mean to--"

Sam didn't say anything, just kept breathing for long enough that Dean was scared he was going to go back to not talking, working tongue or not. When Sam finally opened his eyes they were blank as mirrors, showing nothing but Dean's face.

"I'm doing that to myself, aren't I?" Sam whispered. His voice was as flat as his eyes.

"Doing what? It's not your fault if--" Dean took a step forward, then another one.

"It hurts when you touch me," Sam interrupted, still toneless and soft. "Like, it actually hurts like a cattle prod or something. When anyone other than... than her. It hurts. You should let me go, Dean."

"Yeah, let's figure that will happen, oh, never," Dean spat. He didn't realize how close he'd gotten to Sam again until he saw Sam creeping away, back out of touching range. He drew in a hard breath and made himself be still. "Sammy--"

"I didn't think you would," Sam said and he almost smiled, but there was still nothing in his expression. "Come on then. I have a lot to tell you and I bet there's plenty you need to tell me."

"After I haul your ass to a doctor, yeah," Dean said without skipping a beat. Just because Sam's mouth was better didn't mean he was anything like okay. The whole count every rib thing he had going was probably the least of it.

Sam made a face and that spark of stupid-stubborn little brother, whatever you call it, lit back up in his eyes. "I don't need a doctor, Dean. Ruby--"

"Crazy demon healing does not count," Dean said and folded his arms against his chest. "Don't even think of arguing with me when I know what I'm doing."

Sam sighed and turned away from him but he didn't argue the point anymore. There was a long moment before he said anything at all and then Dean wished he hadn't. "Dean," he said. "How did Dad die?"

"You said you knew," Dean said without pausing to even think about it. "When Ruby said-- you said you knew."

"I know he died." Sam's mouth quirked sideways. "They wanted me to know that. They showed me the bones."

Dean swallowed hard and it was his turn to turn away. "Oh," he mumbled.

"They told me it was my fault," Sam said after another long second of quiet. "They said he tried to get me out."

Dean shook his head, even though Sam wasn't looking at him and couldn't see him do it. "No," he whispered. "That wasn't what happened at all. He wasn't--" He hadn't even been looking for Sam as far as Dean knew. He'd have said, wouldn't he? He'd have said. "I saw, when he died, I was there. It was a witch. Just some dumb witch."

Sam made a sound, low and wet. "Tell me," he said. "Tell me the truth for once, don't sugarcoat it."

Dean scratched at the back of his neck, but didn't turn to look at Sam. "That isn't fair. I'm not the one who--"

"Tell me," Sam said. Dean closed his eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. But then you're going to see the goddamned doctor if I have to drag you by the scruff of the fucking neck."

\

Dean's father died on Sam's nineteenth birthday and also the first time he and Dean had met up in about three months. It wasn't because of Sam's birthday, Dean didn't think-- they didn't mark the day as special by that time, even though Dad had tried to do that while Sam was... there. And when Dad couldn't Dean had taken the time he needed to to make sure his kid brother got a cake, at least. Or a something. With a candle in it. Jello and candles were probably a bad mix, but hey, he'd tried.

Without Sam there to appreciate it though, there was still the hunt. So, it wasn't because of Sam, but Dean wasn't surprised when he got a ping over the 'Net from his dad sending him the coordinates for a joint hunt, a witch hunt. Ridding the world of a little bit more of the evil that infested it was going to be the best thing Dean and Dad could do. Besides, Dad always had a thing about witches and that seemed as good a way as any to celebrate Sam's birthday.

"Demon-lovers," he'd growl and his eyes would get really narrow and blank all at once, like he had something specific he was thinking about killing. If Sam were around, Sam would have asked Dad exactly what he meant or gone on a rant about Wicca and that girl with the black lipstick he used to make out with when... but Sam wasn't there. Dean just looked away, at his feet, at nothing at all, and made sure he had Dad's back all the time.

The witch that killed Dad was five foot nothing with black hair and yellow teeth. Dean was across the room when it happened, running like he was out of time, close as could be. Not close enough to hear what the witch said, less than a second before John Winchester slit his own throat with his youngest son's second favorite knife.

Dean must have screamed, but he didn't remember doing it. "There was something he wanted more than his life," the witch said and she grinned at Dean like it was all an awesome joke. Her pale face was smeared and streaked with cooling blood from the arterial spray but she barely seemed to notice it. "You and your brother's happiness."

"My brother," Dean said and his voice shook. His gun arm shook and he was unsteady on the trigger. Didn't matter, he wouldn't miss at this range, no way. "What do you know about him?"

"All I know is that your father's in hell, or as good as," she said. "He's taking a message for my patron and I don't know where else she could send him. You'll get to say hello when you go there too. If you're lucky," She stared down the barrel of Dean's gun and smirked, sticky stupid. "What are you gonna do with that thing?"

Dean pulled the trigger without a second thought. Her eyes stayed open, a wide, glassy black. "You can say hello for me," Dean whispered.

It didn't matter, because at least Sam wasn't dead. Sam wasn't dead and Dean was going to find him, was always going to find him.

Dean burned his Dad's body on a Sunday morning, all by himself on the edges of what was left of a plague town. He could still see the black flags waving down what had probably been the main street and the red splashed doors, but there was no sign of human life.

Dad burned bright and fast and Dean stayed until the fire burnt itself out and then stayed a little longer.  
The witch's words echoed in his ears. 'He's taking a message for my patron.' But there wasn't enough left of him to be afraid, not anymore.   
\

Getting Sam through a doctor's visit turned out to be slices of the worst nightmare Dean remembered having. Worse than that, because it was Sam's nightmare and he was just the captive audience.

It started out fine. The doctor was a slim, small woman and owed Dean more than a few favors for pushing some ghosts along that hadn't been taking the mass plague graves too well. She was glad to see him, more than glad to clear some space in her office hours to see Sam.

Sam even let Dean stay in the corner of the room during the exam, which was better than he was expecting. "You'd just imagine shit if you didn't see it," was all Sam said, and Dean wasn't going to argue the point. "It's not as bad now, after what she did."

It wasn't good, it really wasn't, but Sam was in a lot better shape than he'd been in when Dean bought him from that slave dealer. Something Ruby had done, Sam was right, even being the demon bitch that she was. Dean couldn't regret that.

It seemed-- not fine, but doable, waiting and watching Sam get checked out. Like Dean could breathe okay, anyway. Right up until the doctor was going through some stupid test, routine, for nerve damage over Sam's scars. Her hands were on him, light and easy and Dean never thought to worry at all until he met Sam's eyes, totally by accident.

They were wide open, pupils down to small black dots in a circle of hazel-green. Empty as the sky, as Sam's expression had been when Dean had first found him again. All Dean heard over the pounding of his own pulse was Sam's voice from before, soft and tense. _It hurts when you touch me. Like, it actually hurts like a cattle prod or something. When anyone other than... than her. _ All he could remember was how close to catatonic Sam had been in the beginning when Dean kept thoughtlessly touching him.

Dean was on his feet less than half a second later. "Stop," he said, in a thick, wound up voice he hardly recognized as his own. "Stop touching him."

"Dean, I--" the doctor began and she wasn't taking her hands off, just staring at Dean fish-mouthed like an idiot. Like a stupid bitch idiot.

There was no wait time between his next thought and just moving. Just grabbing her wrists in one hand and yanking, just getting her off of Sam, getting her off. "I told you to stop touching him," Dean yelled, half in her face. "You're hurting him. Want me to hurt you like you're hurting him?"

Her eyes were big and dark when she stared up at him. Just staring like she'd never seen him before in her life. Her mouth moved but nothing came out and she tugged at his grip but nowhere near hard enough to budge him. Like a sparrow in a bear trap. Dean felt weirdly, fiercely glad to see that blank terror in her, because for just a second she knew what Sam must feel like.

Just a second and then Dean's brain was back on line and he knew what he was doing, that he was holding onto a terrified woman like she was some kind of monster. He didn't know what he said to her but he could feel the heat rising in his skin, burning him up and he let her go just as fast as he'd grabbed her.

"I'm sorry," Dean mumbled like a kid. "I didn't mean to-- I'm sorry."

She just stared at him out of eyes that looked almost as blank as Sam's and Dean wasn't sure if he'd ever felt this low before. Then she blinked again and took a slow, shuddering breath. The fear wasn't gone but her spine stiffened. "I know you're scared for him," she said. Not loud, but solid, brave as anything Dean had ever seen that wasn't Sam. "But you have no right to take that out on me. Tell me what's going on, Dean."

"Nothing, nothing," Dean said, response on automatic. "If you didn't find anything, if there's nothing wrong, I'll just take him home. I am really, absolutely sorry."

"Don't do this to me right now, Winchester," she said, and the fear on her flickered brighter, like she knew now, what Dean was, what Dean was capable of, but she curled her hands up and kept going. "That kid's been tortured and starved like nothing I've seen in years. Where did you find him, a slave market or a prison cell?"

Dean just shook his head. "He can't do this, I can't-- I shouldn't have brought him here." Every time Dean's gaze slid over to Sam that same blank look was there, no change. And Dean's heart and gut just twisted up a little more, because she didn't know, the doctor didn't know, Dean was the one who knew, who Sam had told. "He can't be touched."

"Dean, listen to me, we should run tests, there are all kinds of serious issues that could come up with something like this, even if we manage to rule out disease. Long term starvation is no joking matter. We saw a lot of the blowback after the floods," she said, but Dean was beyond listening. The only thing he was going to do was figure out how to get Sam back into the Impala without touching him.

Sam made it easier than he'd expected. He listened to Dean when Dean told him what had to be done next, more than Dean ever remembered Sam being cable of listening before, anyway. It was at least enough to pull his t-shirt back over his chin and stand up and walk on his own. Slow and pliant as a doll but he did it. They'd still driven at least ten miles down the road before Sam opened his mouth to say anything at all. When he first started Dean was so grateful he could cry, figuring that he hadn't permanently fucked anything up by being stupid.

Within five seconds of the point Dean started listening for more than just to hear Sam's voice, half of Dean wanted nothing in the world as much as to make Sam shut up again and take it all back. Any and all of it. Sam had a threadbare smile and his knees pulled up tight to his chest.

"I started dreaming about fire about a month before I ran away from home," Sam said, quiet and flat. "It was the most fucked up thing. At first I thought I was watching them burn but then I realized I was setting them."

"What, in your dreams?" Dean shot back, but Sam just shrugged.

"I thought that. Just dreams," he mumbled. "Then I could say things, certain things, and they'd happen, just like that. Bad things. People. Do you remember that guy, Jerry Thompson? And the fire?"

"Who?" Dean repeated blankly. His brain flashed him an image of a middle aged guy with big hands and a watery smile and something... something wrong. But he couldn't remember what, not even for Sam.

Sam looked like he was going to say something to jog Dean's memory and then he shook his head. "Bad things," was all he said, like he could barely talk at all. "The last night, before I-- I left. I dreamed about you. You were--"

"Sam," Dean said, his knuckles white and palms flush against the steering wheel. "You don't need to tell me this if you don't want to."

"I want to," Sam said, short and quick. "Do you want to hear it?"

_No_, Dean thought, but he forced himself to nod anyway, even if he couldn't push the words out of his throat. He knew he damn well needed to hear it, and what was wanting things in the face of real live necessity?

Sam waited a few minutes before talking, like he was convinced Dean was just gathering the nerve to tell him to shut up and never ever mention it again, or something equally ridiculous. But if there was one thing Dean had learned from having a little brother, it was to be patient and just wait the whole mess out. As much of it as he could, anyway.

"I was hitching across Georgia when people started to get sick. Everyone still thought it was just the flu then, I mean, just the regular flu, do you remember?" Sam said, and Dean felt a moment of sharp relief that he wasn't going to need to hear what Sam dreamed about him.

"Yeah," he said softly, "I remember."

"They got me coming out of a diner with a takeout cheeseburger. I wasn't being careful at all. Stupid," Sam said and rolled his eyes. "I didn't know they were looking for me, I wasn't even sure if you were-- I should have-- I should have guessed."

"That wasn't your fault," Dean interrupted, as if he knew anything about it. Sam didn't even roll his eyes. He was quiet for a long few minutes, staring out the window and watching the world roll by.

"At first it wasn't... they didn't really hurt me, not for a while. A long time," Sam began again. He sounded hesitant, like he was picking through a clothes by the pound grab bag, looking for the words that meant something, that were actually worth something. "I think they really thought they were going to convince me to help them just like, with logic or something. That there was something they could offer me that would make me do what they wanted." Sam's mouth moved like he was trying to smile, and Dean could almost feel his lips twitching up to match Sam's when they both looked up and caught each other's eyes in the rear view mirror in the same second.

"I could have told them nothing ever convinced Sam Winchester to do a damn thing he didn't want to," Dean offered and at that Sam really did smile, even if it was just for a second. Dean figured he could live with that if he had to, those half second almost smiles. Live with a thousand of them, if there were no more blank eyes or fear. Wishful thinking.

The smile faded fast, though, faster than it had ever taken to form. "Yeah. I'd get really fucking mad, you know? But there wasn't a way out. I did-- I tried to get away, to at least warn someone... I really tried, Dean. I-- I hope you believe that." Dean was going to say something, anything, that he knew, of course he did, but something about Sam's expression kept him quiet.

"One time I got... well, close," Sam said, his attention focused now, all in one place, somewhere way past the grass or the hills outside the car window, way past the road, somewhere Dean couldn't follow him. "Outside the walls of the place they had me, anyway. I thought-- but, yeah. When they got me, I told _him_. I told Azazel-- he's the big guy, Azazel, I don't even know if you know that. I told him that I wasn't going to be some demon's fucking whore."

"Sam--" Dean managed.

"That kind of pissed him off." Sam made a sound that was half-way between a laugh and a sob. "I guess he was really frustrated with me by then anyway. So. He. You know, proved me wrong about that. Ha ha, very funny right? And after that they figured breaking me the old fashioned way would be more fun for them anyway, so they-- yeah." Sam coughed, like that was going to cover Dean's silence, the way Dean wanted to choke on something or at least choke something. "Anyway, yeah. That's it. That brings me up to Ruby, and Ruby's pretty much... it's exactly how it looks."

"It doesn't look like anything," Dean said, tight and bitten off.

"You're such a liar, Dean," Sam whispered and Dean made a sharp turn into a motel drive way and didn't say a word to object.

It wasn't until they were checked into their rooms and Sam was tucked into his own bed, the covers pulled up and over his chin, that Dean first realized that Sam had talked plenty and told him just about nothing. Not what Azazel had wanted or actually done, or Ruby, not what the hell was really going on or what Dean had to do next if he was going to pull off the only important job he had left. Sam made protecting him harder than anyone else in the world, the perverse little bastard.

Dean couldn't make himself wake Sam up just to ask though, not when Sam's eyelids were already black and puffy as if he'd been punched in the face from lack of sleep. He stayed where he was and watched.

He wasn't half as surprised when about half an hour after Sam fell asleep the furniture started to sway with a weird back and forth gentleness. Sam's body moved through the air like he weighed less than a feather, perfectly balanced until he tucked himself down on Dean's bed.

Sam in his sleep didn't seem to feel any pain at all when he lay his head against Dean's stomach, ear pressed close as if he were listening to a heartbeat in the wrong place. Dean's hand shook when he reached out to touch him, but it had been okay before, he knew that. He knew that much.

"Sleep, Sammy," he whispered and stroked his fingers awkwardly over Sam's hair, like he was four and Sam was just a baby, tiny and silky-soft. "Everything is going to be okay."

Dean didn't know when he fell asleep, but by the time he woke up there was bright sunlight streaming through the open window and Sam was curled up on the bed he'd first fallen asleep on the night before with Dean's laptop propped open and practically purring for him when the fucking thing hiccuped and only worked intermittently for Dean these days, that is when it wanted to work at all. The blue glow of the monitor shone on Sam's face and reflected in his eyes when Dean got up to see what he was looking at.

"Harvard Yard," Sam said, without taking his eyes away from what he was doing. "I just started looking, I haven't got anything yet. I had to clean some of the viruses and spyware off your machine first and that ate up fucking hours. Free porn sites are not cool, you know that, right?"

"Jesus, Sammy. Don't be such a little bitch prude," Dean muttered on instinct before he had a chance to think it through.

Sam rewarded him for it with a quick smirk and an eyeroll, like everything was going just fine. "Don't be such a jerk-off and try jerking off a little less. Oh, and go get me some breakfast if you wanna do something useful. I saw a place less than a mile down the road before we pulled in here."

"What do I look like, your errand boy?" Dean groused but he was already on his feet, running fingers through his hair like that was going to neaten it and grabbing at the clothes he'd left on the chair.

"Run, errand boy, run," Sam shouted after him and Dean figured that for that he was going to bring Sam back granola flavored pancakes and fruit or something instead of a real breakfast. Well, except the lame fucker would probably like it too much.

\

Somehow Dean wasn't even surprised when the person in line behind him in the takeout line at the diner turned out to be an all too familiar blonde with a cheerful smile. He had that kind of life.

"What do you want?" he spat on reflex. "Because I have a nice exorcism I can read to you if you wanna hang around long enough to hear it."

She just laughed, bright and merry, and patted the counter next to her. "Dean, Dean, Dean. Never change. You are just hilarious exactly the way you are."

"I could be even more hilarious if you stayed away from my brother," Dean said. He didn't realize how close to her he was standing until the toes of his boots bumped hers. The people on either side of them in line were staring warily, like he was a big guy threatening a real girl, instead of... this. A monster.

That was when Ruby said about the only thing in the world that could have surprised him. "I love your brother," she said, calm as if she were stealing his fries. "I've known a lot of people, but no one has ever imagined me like he does."

Dean wanted to beat her smiling face open with a rock and see the brains seep out. The impulse was vivid, clearer than his best wet dream and all drawn out in shades of red. A thousand times more vivid than the Sam who cried in his sleep and couldn't touch Dean when he was awake, not without hurting himself a little bit more.

Dean pushed his knuckles against his temples and just stared. "Don't talk about him," he gritted out. "Don't talk about love."

Ruby shrugged and bowed her head. "You have a temper problem, you know that?" she murmured. Then she turned around and walked out the door without bothering to order any food. Dean just kept imagining her dead, like this was some kind of pre-plague hippy visualization tape and he could make it happen just by wanting it bad enough. Like he could make anything happen by wanting it bad enough.

When he got out, Sam's breakfast in a paper bag, she was sitting on the curb by the Impala. "Just can't leave me alone, can you?" Dean said.

She propped her chin on her palm and looked up at him. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you, and all of that? Because Sam knows. Demons aren't angels. Lucifer isn't God. You can move us like you'll never move them."

"You don't really believe in that shit, do you?" Dean asked before he had a chance to think it through, to think about who it was he was talking to or why she was talking to him. "I mean, you of all people should know better than... God, right? Seriously?

Ruby blinked at him. It was a strange expression, if it had been anyone else Dean would have called it pure, plain shock. "Wait. You're asking _me_ if I believe God is real? Do you know what I am, Winchester?"

"You're a demon," Dean said. "Duh."

"I'm a fallen angel," she said, slowly, still staring like she'd never seen the likes of Dean before. "I don't have to believe, I was born in the presence. I felt it."

Dean couldn't help the twisted little huff of breath that came out more like a snort. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."

Ruby smiled. For the first time the expression looked almost real. Wistful. "I know what it means to be loved, Winchester. And now... now I don't anymore. Except..."

"Except what?" Dean couldn't help but ask.

"It's a nasty little piece of irony. I used to hate your kind, made in the image and all that crap. But, that's the thing, humans are made in God's image. Some of you... sometimes, it's almost like being there again." Her eyes were bright, but it was Sam she was thinking of. Dean didn't have to ask, he knew. Sam's neck, unbent even in concentration, cleaning a gun or smiling at Dean. Sam caught in a nightmare.

"He's not God. Leave him alone, just leave him." He wasn't begging. Winchesters didn't beg inhuman monsters.

Ruby hopped to her feet and looked Dean dead in the eye. "No," she said, flat and even, and that was all. "Just get him to Cambridge and this nightmare will all be over, for you, for him. If we do it right, for all of us."

Dean stopped shaking before he got back to the motel room and hoped it wasn't still obvious in his face that he had been. Sam didn't even look up, just nodded his head, grabbed the bag of food when Dean offered it, and curled back up with his lap top.

"I think I know what's in Cambridge," Sam said, speaking to his screen instead of Dean.

Dean settled down onto his own bed and watched Sam's face. "What?" he asked softly, when Sam didn't keep talking.

"A book. A grimoire. It's supposed to speak directly to him." Sam's hands tapped restlessly against the bed, against the keyboard, clacking away. "Get his attention, if the right person asks."

"Him who?" Dean said, but if he trusted the twist in his gut, and it had saved his ass enough times that he definitely did, he already knew the answer.

"The Lightbearer. Prince of Lies." Sam bit his lip and his twitching hand slid down to rub at the scar on his hip, the one that three layers of shirts and jeans covered now. "Lucifer." When he finally raised his gaze up to meet Dean's Sam almost smiled. "I mean, holy shit, Dean, how pretentious is that?"

\

Dean settled the motel bill with a government IOU while Sam stayed behind him out of reach of stray touches from the bored looking clerk or the wild, sticky haired toddler of indeterminate gender tearing back and forth through the lobby wearing nothing but a 'free water, free 'Net, free world' T-shirt that bobbed against its knees.

"Cute kid," Dean nodded at it, while the clerk rolled her eyes and stamped the IOU before tucking it into her drawer.

"Yeah, yeah, as long as she doesn't grow up to be a fucking hunter," the clerk muttered. Not much to say to that, so Dean kept his mouth shut and walked out the door, Sam standing close, within touching range and untouchable anyway.

"The government's handing out paper to hunters now? And you're actually working for them?" Sam asked as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Or is this what you're using to replace credit card scams?"

Dean laughed, nice to talk about something that was actually easy for once. "Nah, I've gone legit, Sammy. Hazard pay, cheap gas, save the world and everything, and I didn't even have to go to college for it."

Sam bit his lip and stared down at his hands and then Dean's stupid brain came on-line and he realized what he'd just said. His sixteen year old brother had gone on and on about-- that, the whole college trip. If he had done that instead of...

Dean bit his own lip and kept his eyes on the road. Sam should have gotten to do that. Neither of them said anything for a while until Dean finally sucked in a breath and made himself do it. "So, Ruby came to see me at the diner while I was buying your breakfast," he blurted out, quick enough he wouldn't have time to stop himself.

Sam blinked and then twisted over in his seat so that he was looking at Dean. "Talk," he demanded and Dean did. Spilling it out was a relief, actually. Sam and his ridiculous brain was always better at this twisty shit that Dean hated.

Sam just stayed quiet and nodded a few times while Dean talked. He picked restlessly at his jeans, at the belt, tapped his fingers on the dash and then just sighed, deep and heavy. "She's a demon," Sam finally said once Dean was done talking. "Demons lie, especially if it fucks with your head that little bit more."

"She--"

"She's like something out of a cheap-o prison movie," Sam continued, ignoring Dean's cut off attempt to talk. "She lets the other prisoners fuck you up real good and then comes in while you're bleeding. Like, all smiles and says she'll protect you if you're good. She lies, Dean."

"Okay," Dean said softly. He watched Sam's face in the rearview mirror and resisted the urge to angle it to get a better view. "Then why are we doing what she wants and going to Cambridge?"

Sam settled in deeper into his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and didn't say anything at all for the next ten miles. Dean went with it for a while before it was too much and he had to pop a tape into the stereo just to make the quiet stop.

Sam didn't even blink, like his tongue was fucked up again or something. Dean half considered yelling at him or throwing cheeseburger wrappers at his face or something. Then he got distracted trying to drive around a pile of downed trees that looked like they'd been left there to rot. It was like Sam had used his freaky powers to get the things there on purpose just to make Dean forget he could talk and freak Dean out when he did.

It worked too, because when Sam started talking out of nowhere after an hour of blank silence, Dean almost jumped out of his skin.

"You fucking hate Nirvana," Sam said.

"What?" Dean said, between gritting his teeth and trying not to swerve off the road. "What are you talking about?"

"When I tried to play this tape, you and dad would like, gang up on me and tell me I had the worst taste in music in the hemisphere," Sam said, just as flatly.

"You do. Did. Whatever," Dean said, in what he wanted to come out flat but sounded flustered to his ear. "Don't know where you got it, either, isn't taste supposed to be either learned or inherited?"

Sam stayed quiet for about half a second. "You're playing it now." The flatness in his voice quavered and shattered. Dean blinked and stared at the tapedeck. Huh. Okay. "Ever since you-- you keep playing Nirvana. Why are you playing it now?"

"Oh," Dean whispered. "Oh. Well, yeah. Of course I am. You liked-- you, you _like_ it don't you?"

"What does what I like have to do with anything?" Sam asked, like it was a completely legitimate question.

"Stop it," Dean said. Eyes on the road, brain on the road, hands on the gear and the wheel, just think about that. "Why are we going to Cambridge, Sam?"

"No one asked you to come with me," Sam said, sullen, like he had his lower lip sticking out. Dean couldn't say a word to that kind of bullshit, so he just cranked up his crappy tape and pretended Sam wasn't there for the next three hundred miles.

They met a demon standing behind the bar of the ramshackle little roadside place Dean picked to stop for lunch. It wore a male body, older, with a beer gut and a pleasant smile. Dean wouldn't have guessed in a thousand years not while it just stood there and served drinks like that was its life, but Sam just stiffened up the second he walked through the door.

"Christo," Sam said, loud and easy and the thing flinched like Sam had branded it. Dean scanned the room, but none of the regulars even looked up from their drinks. People freaked him out when they did shit like that, like even now, none of it was happening as long as they still had free, pure water or whatever the fuck.

"Please," it said and cringed, the large body huddling back like it was small. "I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything."

"You're spying on me," Sam said, like he knew that for sure. The thing didn't so much as whimper a protest, so maybe that was right. "Who for? Azazel. Not Ruby, she'd show up her own damn self."

"I don't even know who Ruby is," it whispered. "It wasn't me that did it. I never touched you. Not like those others."

"Azazel, then. You're spying for him." The thing didn't even argue, not that it would have done any good, not with that old familiar look on Sam's face, the one even Dad had backed off from sometimes.

"I have to do what I'm ordered. We all do, til Lucifer wakes up, climbs back onto his throne and takes charge. Then--"

Sam's whole expression sharpened. He leaned forward, closer than Dean had ever seen him get to any one person willingly that wasn't himself or Ruby. "Then what? What happens when Lucifer wakes up again?"

"I don't know," the demon whispered. "They say we'll all be free then. That's what I heard. Be free and have whatever we want."

Sam's frown deepened and furrowed. "Huh. Well, it won't do you much good now. I'm going to send you on home to Azazel. Tell him not to bother with any more spies. Tell him I can smell him on you, like-- like dog piss."

They bridled his brother when the demons had him, and when Sam started to speak Dean really understood why. It wasn't words, the things he said. They barely sounded like words and it was no language, no exorcism that Dean had ever heard before.

Sam didn't even hesitate, not like this was a spell. No book, no crib sheet, just Dean's brother, tall and broken, thin to the point of bones visible everywhere and words spilling out of his mouth. Absolutely terrifying. Dean had never felt sorry for a demon before, never seen one just ripped out of its host like that.

Even the bystanders couldn't ignore this one. Dean had to pull out his ID badge and flash it around a few times to clear them out. It might as well have been a fake for all the attention anyone paid before running for their cars. Fucking losers.

After Sam was done, the demon's host slumped against the bar, bleeding from the mouth and gasping. Sam hopped across the bar and knelt beside the man, stroking his hair while he choked to death on his own blood.

If the touch hurt him, Sam never showed it at all. After, Dean knelt down to push the poor bastard's eyelids closed and neither of them said a word. They left the bar in step with each other and quiet, like they both already knew where they were going.

[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)


	4. The Devil's Mark (4/6)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **The Devil's Mark (4/6)** _

See [Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html) for headers and such  
[Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html)/[Part Two](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52308.html)/[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)/[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)/[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)/[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)  


When they crossed the border into Massachusetts, the air started to get wetter almost right off, like swamp was crawling in and choking off what had once been a temperate climate. Sam finally fell asleep in the car, conked out by the heat or his own exhaustion or whatever else.

Dean went into a gas station to pay for gas and beef jerky in a package so old it had probably been made in a factory before the world went to shit.

The girl at the cash register had pale, freckled skin and the top three buttons of her blouse undone. She grinned and leaned forward on the counter so that Dean could see she wasn't wearing a bra. "If you taste as good as you look, I'll bet we could have a really good time," she crooned.

"Christo," Dean whispered, just in case, but she only blinked at him and smiled.

"Christa," she corrected. "Like on my name tag, see?" she indicated to the tag where it was pinned to her already precariously closed blouse. Dean smirked at her.

"I see," he said, and leaned forward himself, finally letting himself enjoy the view. When she took him by the arm and led him out back behind a rusted out ancient dumpster he just kept on grinning. "We have to go fast," he whispered to her, while she wrapped her legs around his and practically climbed him. "My brother--"

"Shhhh, don't worry about a thing, I'm clean and it won't take long," she hissed and slid her hand in between skin and boxers to grab a hold of Dean and pull. Dean shut right up then and went with it, lifted her up and hiked up her skirt while she grabbed at the zipper of his jeans and tugged him out into the open.

Her legs were around his waist and she wasn't wearing anything, no panties, just skin and hair brushing against his thighs, his dick. She sank down, hot and tight and Dean forgot the world for a few seconds of bliss.

Christa grinned at him afterwards and leaned up so he could press a kiss to the tip of her pointy nose. She wrinkled it and laughed out loud. "Thanks for that," she said. "You have no idea how much I needed the break."

Dean stayed put for a few minutes after she straightened her skirt and left, just leaning against the wall, panting. He didn't know how much Christa had needed that but he needed it more.

When he finally opened his eyes and went to zip his jeans back up Sam was right there, leaning against the wall. Not close, but close enough to have seen... a lot.

"I thought you were sleeping," Dean muttered. "I thought you were in the car, or I would have-- I mean, awkward."

Sam shrugged. "I woke up and you were gone. I went to look for you." He didn't sound scared about it, waking up and having Dean gone, or even angry or irritated. He was back to blank again instead.

"I'm sorry, I just needed to-- I mean, how much did you see?" Dean didn't know if it bothered him or not, that Sam saw. It wouldn't have before, when Sam was sixteen and everything was different, it wouldn't have bothered him at all. He wondered what kind of sick fuck that made him.

"Enough. Does it feel good to you? Really?" Sam asked, and what was left of Dean's sex buzz spun out just like that. Little buzz kill. "I mean, it looks like-- that girl, she looked like it felt really good to her."

"Duh, it feels good, you should--" Dean bit his tongue before he totally lost his mind and told Sam he should try it more often. "It's-- I mean, I like it."

Sam nodded and looked at Dean like he was a google search word and going to start spitting out answers. "Yeah, because you keep doing it. But--"

Dean could just feel his skin flaming and wondered in a vague way if this was how spontaneous human combustion happened. This should not be this awkward. This was still Sam, baby brother Sammy. "Oh, man, you are not asking me what the point of sex is, are you?" he muttered. "You're kind of old for birds and bees, dude."

Sam pursed his lips. "No," he said after a long pause. He stared at Dean narrowly. "Dude, I didn't know you could blush that color and not pass out from blood leaving your brain."

"You're asking me why people have sex, Sam!" Dean hissed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He didn't get why Sam didn't get it. "What am I supposed to do, give you a long speech about true love or something? You must have had sex before, right? I mean... before. Right?" Sam hadn't ever mentioned it, but he'd been sixteen and secretive. He wouldn't have.

Sam was quiet for so long that Dean had to remind himself that of course, of course he-- and then Sam ruined it by talking. "No," he said, in a completely normal voice. "Not with people. Just with demons."

Dean swayed where he stood for a long, blank moment. Then he shivered, shook himself loose, and put his fist through the narrow plaster walls of the bar. He could feel Sam's stare burning along his skin, but he didn't know what to do with it, didn't know how to fix anything, just make more holes.

"I'm sorry," Sam said to Dean's back. That just made Dean want to punch something again but his knuckles were already bleeding.

"Don't apologize, for fuck's sake," Dean growled. "Don't."

"Okay," Sam said. "Let's get out of here before they make us pay for the wall. I'll tape up your knuckles in the car or something."

"Don't," Dean whispered, but Sam just stared at him like he had no idea what he was even talking about. And Dean missed his brother, his crazy, sullen sixteen year old brother with his stupid blinding smile and his stupid trusting eyes. He missed him so much that it smothered everything, even the hurt in his hand.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong," Sam said. "Fuck, let's just go back to the car, okay?" He didn't wait for Dean to say anything else, just turned and went. Right there, broad shouldered and present and Dean still kept missing the fuck out of him.

"Okay. Right," Dean said to himself before he could make himself move. "Right."

There was a way to fix this. If he thought about it hard enough he'd figure it out. This was his goddamned job, fixing things for Sam whether Sam acted like he believed it or not.

"I like not having to think for a little while," Dean said, when he got to the car. Sam stared at him from the opposite side, palms pressed down against the roof. "When I'm with a girl, you know? For a few minutes everything just feels good. I don't have to worry about anything else other than feeling good and making sure she feels good too. You know?"

Sam sucked in his lower lip and his eyelids lowered, narrowing in thought. "Okay. I understand that, I guess," he said like someone who knew he was lying. Dean didn't call him on it, mostly because he didn't think he could say another word or hear another word either. Maybe tomorrow, just not right now.

Instead he suffered through Sam pulling out the first aid kit and cleaning out his knuckles in absolute silence, or near as he could make it. He waited until he had the engine going and they were pulling out of the lot. "Why are we going to Cambridge, Sam?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "Trust me. I'll explain in the next town, okay, but right now could you please, please just--"

"I trust you," Dean interrupted. His knuckles clenched white, already dripping red through the bandages. "Just stop talking. I trust you."

"Okay," Sam said. Like he didn't believe a damn word of it. He didn't say a word, not in the next town, or the town after that. For a while they just kept driving.

They finally stopped for the night in Worcester, about forty-five miles from where the coast used to be, but there were mostly bogs and bays from there on out these days. Dean wanted to drive straight through as far as the roads went, like things would get better if they just went fast as they could, but Sam had other ideas.

"There's someone I need to talk to," Sam said, when he told Dean to get off the Mass Pike at the second Worcester exit instead of pushing on. "I've been-- we've been emailing back and forth about what's in Cambridge, but there are some things you can only really do in person."

"Who is it?" Dean asked, even though he already knew he was going to do it just because Sam asked him to.

"A witch," Sam said softly. His palm pressed up against his hip where his own witch's mark was carved. "Well. He's more of an ex-witch, I guess."

"Ex-witch," Dean said and hated how much it sounded like scoffing. "I never heard of anything like that. Witches are-- they just are." Dean trailed off and stared at the road.

Sam just smiled, faint and bitter. "Anyone can repent, Dean, right up to the end. It's still allowed."

Dean could have said about a million things to that, some of them angry, some of them bitter, most of them about how Sam had _nothing_, absolutely not a damn thing he needed to repent and fuck that shit. Instead he just hung on to the wheel and followed Sam's directions.

He didn't know what he expected, what this ex-witch of Sam's was going to look like. It turned out to be a guy, ash blond and built like a linebacker with a few inches on Sam. Guy was dressed in layers of cotton and wool like he didn't even feel the steamy humidity of the day. There were things on his skin, like letters in an alphabet Dean didn't know. Carved up and down his cheekbones and disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Carved, really carved not tattooed, like someone had sat down and done each one with a knife, and flawless like the guy had sat completely still and let them.

He looked right past Dean like Dean was the invisible man. "Sam Winchester, I am very glad to see you," he said and offered his hand to shake. He didn't act surprised when Sam ignored it.

"Mike Riley," Sam said back, in the same flat, knowing way the guy had spoken to him. "It's... good to be seen. That's my brother Dean." Mike's gaze flicked over to Dean and then slid off again.

"Your brother? He shines pretty brightly toward you," Mike said and then stepped back and let them follow him into the apartment.

_Shines?_ Dean mouthed at Sam while Mike's back was turned, but Sam just shrugged and his mouth twitched, like something was funny. He didn't share the joke, though.

The inside of Mike's place was as sterile as the backroom at a tattoo parlor. It looked like one too, hung up with pictures of flash on all the walls and pots of ink settled in, like it was used all the time. The only thing dusty was a bookshelf in the corner and Mike headed right for that.

"Here's the source you need," he said and grabbed a heavy looking book right off the top shelf like he'd been keeping it ready for Sam. Sam took it and gave it this hungry stare that Dean recognized from a thousand library visits and research trips. He even petted the cover of the book like it was... it was a car or something.

"Dude, do you wanna read it or make sweet love to it?" Dean muttered and rolled his eyes, even while he had to push back a grin, especially when Sam gave him the finger without looking up from the book.

"Can I use your space to make some notes?" Sam asked Mike, still ignoring Dean all the way. There was a quick, whispered negotiation that Dean tuned out pretty quickly when it turned out to be all about more geek shit. Whatever it was, they agreed pretty quickly and Sam hauled off into a side room and curled up with the book like it was his new baby, leaving Dean standing in the hall with the ex-witch or whatever.

He wasn't really sure what to say. _So, you used to fuck demons, how did that work out for you, dude?_ He thought about it and almost said it but Mike started talking before he had a chance. "Would you like a beer?" Mike asked, like Dean was his guest. "We still have a few real brew pubs that put out some solid stuff."

Dean blinked and shrugged. "How do you know Sam, anyway?" he asked instead of answering the question.

Mike looked him dead in the eye. "You may as well know. He was Lord Azazel's slave. Lord Azazel was my... my patron, I suppose you could call it."

Dean's hands clenched into fists at his side and he was two steps closer, bristled up like he could take a guy who was taller and about thirty times as built as his wasted little brother. Because of his brother, who never should have looked like that.

"What did you do to him?" he spat out.

Mike just shook his head and raised his hands up, palms forward and open like he could see something in Dean's eyes that made him flinch. "Nothing. There was nothing I could have done. There were... were doors that needed to be opened, that Lord-- that Azazel wanted opened. Sam. Sam wouldn't. That was all. But I didn't touch him."

"You didn't help him," Dean growled. And he tried, tried so hard not to picture it, not to think of it.

Mike didn't take his gaze off of Dean's, even when his skin flushed bright red. "A demon seduced me," he whispered. "No. I let a demon seduce me. There's no apology I can make for what I didn't do. Nothing I can do except help him now. That's what you really want to know, isn't it? Why I'm helping him now?"

Dean drew in a long, rough breath that burned his throat. His eyes stung and the world watered. "I don't care," he muttered. "Tell me how you stopped."

"Stopped what? Being a witch?" Dean nodded numbly and Mike sighed softly and finally, finally closed his eyes. "He was so beautiful... he had wings, like an angel. White. But... but I..."

"You what?" Dean whispered.

"Fell out of love with him. That was really all." Mike's eyes snapped open again, blue as clean ocean water on a cloudless day. "No. I-- I fell out of love."

Mike might have said something else, or Dean, but the door to the room where Sam was holed up reading squeaked open and they both turned to look at him instead. There were black pouches under his eyes, but there always were. Dean didn't want to think they'd suddenly gotten any worse.

Sam clutched the book to his side and looked right at Dean and only Dean. "I figured it out," he said. "We need to... I don't know, get a room and talk."

Mike stepped in, shaking his head. "You can spend the night here. I don't mind putting you up, Sam."

Sam turned his head to look at him, blank eyed again. "No. I don't think so." He blinked a few times and then shook his head. "Thank you," he added, like a necessary afterthought and then stared down at the book he was holding. "I'll take this, though."

"You can't. That--"

"I'll take this," Sam repeated, firm and relentless. "If I get the opportunity, I'll return it." Dean couldn't help but smile at the look on Mike's face. It made him feel a lot better about not having hit the fucker.

Dean waited until Sam left the room, carefully watching his brother's back, but Mike didn't make a move, just froze on the spot, staring at where Sam had been. For all Dean knew he might have spent hours like that, but they were long gone before then.

"I don't think he... he's not evil, you know? But he owes me more than a book," was all Sam said when they got back into the car. He looked almost sheepish, like he expected Dean to be mad or something crazy like that.

"Want me to go back and kick his ass?" Dean asked, because, hey, it wasn't too late. Sam just laughed out loud and shook his head.

Dean checked them both into a motel that stank of bog water on the banks. There were rows of the places, mostly faded and funny smelling, but enough that it would make searching all the motels in the area plenty hard enough if someone was looking for them.

"So what did you find out?" he asked when they finally got to their room. Sam took a deep breath, like he was getting ready to lie or not answer, but instead he looked at Dean straight on, book clutched to his stomach and all.

"I kind of... it's mostly stuff I knew, I just-- I needed to be sure before... okay. To get the attention they want, they need a sacrifice," Sam said softly. His fingers drummed against the leather binding, off pattern, relentlessly annoying, but Dean didn't call him on it. Instead he braced himself a little harder, for this story, this thing he probably, definitely, didn't want to know. Not unless he had a time machine so he could fucking go back and do something useful about it.

"What, a virgin in white and a goat for Lucifer or something?" Dean muttered.

"Not exactly a virgin," Sam said. His gaze was fixed on the wall behind Dean's head like he was boring a hole through it with looks alone. With that wall, Dean even figured it was possible. "This thing is particular. It... a desecrated innocent. Untouched, except by demon blood. If this were the ritual she wanted to use, it would make sense that she wants me to get to Cambridge so fucking badly."

Sam tried to smile and Dean made a noise, soft and stupid sounding, like the smile was the worst of it. Then, "But, wait-- you're not. That's not you. They were just first, right? I mean when you were-- those slav-- those people who sold you. Didn't they?" He hated it the second he said it, like he was sounding like he was begging for his brother to tell him that he'd been fucking-- that he'd been fucked, like that.

Sam just shook his head, still staring anywhere but at Dean's face. Dean didn't know what to say, and then Sam kept talking and ripping at Dean a little more. "That doesn't count," he whispered. "When it's unwilling, it never-- the conditions of sin are the same as the conditions of grace. You do it willingly, knowingly, deliberately."

Dean turned around once. Twice. Looked at Sam and then covered his face with his hands like a total coward. "Never?" he croaked. "Not even when you were in high school or something?"

Sam's laugh sounded like something cracking. "I'm not-- I wasn't-- couldn't just do something like that all _casually_. Clearly a dumbass decision on my part, which you would have told me then if I'd bothered to ask you."

"Yeah." Dean forced himself to peel his hands away, to shove them against his thighs where they wouldn't shake. He looked at Sam's face, Sam's clean, painfully young face. Desecrated, trust Sam or one of Sam's dusty books to pull out a five dollar word for fucked-- for that. Raped. A desecrated innocent. "We won't go to Cambridge," Dean said, forcing his voice to be firm, like Dad's. Making it an order. "We'll turn right around, get you somewhere safe. You're going to be safe."

Sam just laughed. "Then they'll wait 'til our guard is down, possess, I dunno possess, like, the gas station attendant and-- and one of them will take me and bring me there." Dean wanted to open up his mouth to argue that, but he knew better. He could protect his brother from the armies of hell, maybe, maybe he could, but for how long? "If they want it to go down like that, that's how it will happen."

He scrubbed the back of his neck, feeling the spikes of hair under his palm. "Well, we have to do something, Sammy. What if you weren't anymore? I mean, what if you found someone who wasn't a demon and, well-- you know? Took care of that."

Sam raised an eyebrow like he was going to be sarcastic and his voice dripped honey and barbed wire. "Gee, I never thought of that at all, Dean. Like who do you have in mind, exactly?"

Dean threw up his hands. "I don't know! A girl at a bar, you look fine even if you're a skinny shit. I'll find you one. Hell, a girl on a streetcorner if we have to."

"It would probably have to be a guy at a bar or streetcorner," Sam said after a moment of eye-rolling quiet. "I don't think I could-- believe me, when someone touches me, getting it up is the last thing on my mind."

"No," Dean spat out and glared at Sam.

"Why, are you a homophobe?" If Sam kept rolling his eyes like that, they were probably gonna fall right out of the sockets. Dean almost told him that.

"No," he said instead. "I've fucked around with my share of guys and you damn well know that too. But I'm not gonna watch you spread your legs like some kind of sacrifice while someone hurts you either."

"No one said you had to watch," Sam muttered. "Fucking voyeur." Like he hadn't watched Dean, like he hadn't asked Dean...

Sam's hand, the one not on the book, just twitched, palm up, soft and beckoning. So close, he was standing close like that. His hand, like it was just waiting to be grabbed, held. "When you're asleep," Dean whispered. "When you're asleep, you touch me. I mean-- I don't know. It doesn't look like it hurts then. We could-- I don't know."

"Dean," Sam said, slowly, like he was talking to a very small child. "If we get someone to fuck me while I'm asleep I doubt that would count as consent, okay?"

"What happens when you wake up?" Dean kept going, right over Sam. If that was the only way to get the fucker to listen. "Does it hurt, when you wake up touching me? Or do you-- I dunno. I can't help you if I don't know. Tell me."

Sam blushed, quick and deep and red, spreading down to his neck in a second. It should have been cute. Dean should have been able to tease him or-- anything. Whatever. He bit down on his own lip hard enough to taste metal.

"It's different then, I--I--" Sam stammered. "When I'm still not really awake like that you're, I-- I'm not really-- it doesn't even matter, I don't think it would be, that-- it's just because I know you."

Dean closed his eyes. "Yeah," he whispered. "I know you too and there isn't a damn thing I wouldn't do for you, okay?"

He half expected Sam to yell at him, call him a perverted fuckhead, to throw that damn book at his head, something. Anything but Sam's eyes on him, narrow and tight. Sam's hands, still there, still so damn close that Dean could feel the air when Sam moved.

"That girl you were with in that alley," Sam said. Not soft, just his normal tone of voice, like it was nothing. "I saw her face. After. She looked... you looked happy. Like it was this really good thing, what you did."

"You were thinking about this then, weren't you?" Dean muttered, but he didn't know what he felt other than tired. "That's why you asked me... what you asked me, right? You had this in mind. When did you-- never mind, I don't want to know."

Sam flinched back. "I-- I wasn't-- only if you brought it up." He put his hand up to his forehead and rubbed the space between his eyes. Tired. Sam looked more tired than even Dean felt. Tired and small. "I didn't want to suggest, to make you... You know what, just forget it. You-- I'll find someone else."

"I _did_ bring it up, Sammy, and I'm not taking it back," Dean whispered, like the words would be enough to take that look off of Sam's face. Sam just shrugged. "In the morning, we'll... we'll do it in the morning. When you wake up."

Sam swallowed visibly, but he didn't object, didn't argue. He just turned around put the book on the nightstand, kicked off his boots and climbed under the covers of the bed furthest from the door still dressed in all of his clothes.

"Thank you," he whispered, so soft that Dean wasn't sure if it was even real. He just straightened his spine, stripped down to his boxers and turned out all the lights.

\   
In a waiting room that wasn't a room at all, a dead man came to the door with a message. When he heard it, the man behind the door stared at him for a long, long moment and then threw back his head and laughed and laughed like it was the best joke in the world.

"So, will you listen to her?" the dead man asked, head cocked and curious. "Or do you think she's lying?"

"Maybe," the man behind the door said. He closed his eyes as if he were imagining someone else. "She only lies if you don't listen hard enough to what she's really saying."

"She says she doesn't miss you," the dead man said. "But that she loves you all anyway."

The other nodded. "She really hasn't changed at all." He sighed and stepped away from the door, gesturing the dead man inside. "Well, none of it matters to you anymore, does it? You'd better come in."

The dead man took a step but then stopped on the threshold and looked back over to what was behind him. "If I come in... my wife... my boys..."

The man behind the door looked the dead man in the eye. "Ah," he said. "Now that part is up to them."

\   
Dean didn't sleep that night, just settled back against the hard motel pillows and waited until Sam's exhaustion caught up with him. Waited until Sam slid out of his bed and into Dean's, floating like a witch or a ghost. Something that wasn't real enough for the solid world but real enough for... for Dean. Something Dean could touch.

Dean's hands were shaking and he didn't know if they were going to stop, if he was going to get any calmer. He could hear Sam's breath, soft, rushing in and out, like a kid's when they were fast asleep, like Sammy. Sam's face would be soft too, relaxed and young when he was really asleep, when he wasn't dreaming.

Dean shivered all the way through to his bones until he couldn't do that anymore-- until he stopped, made himself calm down. This. He was going to, he could do it, he would. His skin felt too tight, prickling and he didn't know if he had it in him, not this. But he was going to.

His baby brother. Sam twitched in his sleep, turned his head toward Dean, making his neck arch, exposing sinew and tendon. So thin. Dean's hands shook when he reached out to touch, to press fingertips to the pulse point and hear Sam's heart thrum steadily. Baby, his brain whispered to him, but Sam's body was anything but a kid's, worn down and stripped bare, burned and scarred, so different from what it had been before.

Sam twitched again and whimpered with the motion. His eyelashes fluttered like he was sliding into a dream. Dean knew about Sam's dreams, knew more than he ever wanted to about the contents of them, and that was enough to make him finally, finally unfreeze. He had to move because this was Sam.

"Don't," he whispered, and pressed his hand against Sam's cheek, feeling the skin and bone, the motion and warmth. "You're here. You're safe." He put his mouth over the spot that his hand had warmed, delicate, like kissing Sam goodnight when he was a baby. He could picture his mom standing behind him, her voice in his ear.

'Kiss your brother so he knows you love him, Dean,' she'd said. She'd say that all the time, when they went to tuck Sammy in before bed. Dean didn't even know what she'd say now. He just knew he could do this, he had to do this.

He kissed Sam's cheek again, rough skin of his lips catching on Sam's stubble, and let his mouth slide down until he was touching lip to lip. Sam's mouth under his was easy to open, pliant, like an invitation. Sam's breath tasted sour but warm. Alive. Easy.

Dean almost pulled away, it was so easy. Just to catch his breath, just to think. But Sam made a noise, a low, tired sounding whimper and he moved without opening his eyes. Pressed himself close to Dean, closer to Dean than he'd been in a long time, body angled enough that Dean could feel the sharp edges of underfed muscle and bone.

He didn't know what he was supposed to feel. It wasn't... it wasn't lust, didn't get dick to twitch and his heart to pound, not like a bar girl in a tight shirt or one of the tall, laughing eyed boys who slid down on their knees for him like they were made for that. That wasn't what Dean felt when Sam's eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, soft and light, like they were about to open.

"It's okay," he whispered, when Sam blinked at him, eyes sleep dazed and bleary. He was half afraid to keep touching, waiting for the flinch, for the shuttered look in Sam's eyes, but Sam just sighed softly like he was still asleep or too far gone to care and relaxed against Dean's hands. "It's okay," Dean said again, and Sam nodded slowly and his mouth curved up.

When Dean pressed their lips together again Sam was ready for him, warm and open, wetter and sweeter this time. It was a careful kiss, like neither of them really had a clue, like they were both alone in the dark and fumbling for the best way to touch, but it was good, there was something there. It wasn't... wasn't brotherly. Too intentional for that.

Dean wanted to touch and he didn't know why he hadn't expected that. He wanted the way that Sam bent over and came to him, like he'd been waiting for this too.

"Does it feel good?" Dean whispered into the kiss and then almost immediately wished he could take the words back. He didn't know, he didn't know how long this reprieve would last, this time when it was mysteriously okay for him to touch Sam. He didn't know what it felt like for Sam, how-- how delicate the moment was. He didn't want to fuck it up with words.

The last thing he expected was for Sam to laugh at him. Low and hoarse, like his voice still wasn't all the way right, but not the kind of laugh that hurt. The old kind of Sam laughter, warmer, from back when Sam would look at Dean and grin all the time, just because things were good. Loose and open. "Dude, you barely touched me. It doesn't feel like anything yet."

"Excuse me for caring," Dean muttered, but there was no venom in it. He grazed his fingertips over Sam's hand, another barely there touch that was rewarded with Sam's bright, lopsided grin.

"I won't break," Sam said. "I already did that, I don't have to again." His hand twisted in Dean's, turning so that they were both gripping each other and for a second Dean just held on as hard as Sam. Tight, almost bonecrushing. "I dreamed about this when-- I promise that I know I won't break," Sam said and his expression was so fixed, so intent, that Dean wondered who that promise was for.

"I didn't say--" Dean protested, but the words were cut off when Sam cupped Dean's face with his free hand and forced him to look right into those half wild, still laughing hazel eyes. Forced him to come up with a new adjective for his kid brother. Not broken. Fucking fearless. Absolutely foreign and new but still Dean's familiar crazy, stubborn little brother.

"I just want it to be you," Sam whispered to him, rough and fierce. "Got it? You don't have to be some sensitive guy. You can touch me. Just be Dean."

And Dean had to laugh back, had to tilt his mouth against Sam's and laugh like that, so he could taste it, hot and new, like a flash of good whiskey heating up his spine. Maybe this wasn't lust, but maybe it was better.

Sam took the lead and Dean let him without questioning it, just relaxed and let himself get pushed back against the bed, Sam's mouth doing something, whispering into his skin. He almost mumbled something about not expecting Sam to know... to know how, but Sam picked that second to graze his teeth over one of Dean's nipples with a look of the kind of absolute concentration he normally kept for books and puzzles.

Sam's teeth, Sam's tongue, the smell of him, all cheap motel detergent and clean skin and brother-my-brother. It took what seemed like forever for Sam to get below the waist and Dean was more than ready for it, didn't even know when he'd gotten so ready, so hard, all the blood gone down there.

"You want to. You want... this... me," Sam whispered, that wet, red mouth hovering close enough that Dean could feel the breath on the head of his cock. "I wasn't sure you would."

Dean snorted and let his fingers stroke through Sam's soft, too long hair. "You said you dreamed this."

Sam blinked and looked up at him, met his eyes. He didn't smile, but there was the gleam in them, like he could have. "Yeah," he said. "But half of what I dream is shit." And then he slid down.

It wasn't an expert blow job, but that was better, better this way. Clumsy and wet, but so damned warm and the sight of Dean's dick, disappearing into that red mouth. Better this way, with Sam's gasping, loud enthusiasm, taking an inch of Dean and having to let it go before coming right back after it. Sam's cock, a hot line of wet skin pressed against Dean's leg, a wordless promise that Sam liked this, that even his body liked this.

Dean wanted to ask, wanted to know if this was the first time for... for this, but Sam's mouth was on him, hot and tight and he was so bright eyed that even if Dean could have gotten the breath for that he knew it didn't matter. The sounds he made were enough, ridiculous wild noises, better than porn, better than anything.

Dean didn't have to ask after all, this was the first time, this was the only time. Dean held on tight, fingers tangled in soft hair and let Sam have everything he wanted, let it feel so damned good.

When Sam panted in his ear afterwards he felt boneless and loose and so damned ready to nod and say yes when Sam nudged his knees apart. "Can I?" Sam whispered. "I want to. Can I?"

"I put the lube in the nightstand," Dean said back, and it was as easy as that. This, it wasn't like the blowjob... Sam must have done this part before, because he was too good not to have, too knowing not to have put those slick, blunt warm fingers up inside someone before like he knew exactly what places needed to be touched the most.

Sam was quiet for that part, as quiet as he'd been loud and messy when he blew Dean. But his face had that same expression, the intent concentration, like this was something crucial. Dean couldn't resist touching him, not now, not knowing that he finally could. His hands were everywhere, loose, lazy touches, probably more distracting than arousing, but it was Sam and skin and it made Sam break from what he was doing and smile at him.

Sam's hands felt big, wide open and easy as anything and Sam's mouth was as warm on his neck as it had been on his dick. Dean almost wasn't ready for it, for anything but this.

When Sam pushed inside him it burned for half a minute, thick and uncomfortable, and then it stopped mattering at all. "Thought-- I thought you wouldn't be able to get it up for this," Dean gasped between thrusts. He didn't know how he could talk at all, where the words were even coming from. Sam just rolled his eyes and kept panting in his ear, kept moving inside him, hard and steady, relentless until all Dean could hear was that breath and his own heart pounding.

It shouldn't have felt like the best thing, the most right thing that had ever happened to him to have Sam laying next to him afterwards, both of them sweat and semen sticky. Dean didn't want to move, didn't want the time to pass. He didn't even think about why until the sun started to filter in heavier through the threadbare curtains and Sam made a noise and peeled himself away from Dean, back out of touching range.

"I thought it was okay now," Dean said and reached back out like he was going to pull Sam back in before he really thought about. "Touching. I thought it would be-- you said--"

Sam shook his head and pressed his finger close to Dean's mouth. Close, but not touching skin. "It was like dreaming," he said. The heavy black bags around Sam's eyes were still there and he still had shadows and hollows on his skin where there should have been muscle. "We were dreaming. That's all. It doesn't change anything."

It was Dean's turn to snort. "Yeah, cause dreaming always gets my ass this sore. I didn't do what I just did so we could call it a drunken screw and forget about it."

"We weren't drunk," Sam muttered and made a face. One of the really annoying ones. He pulled himself further away from Dean and much as Dean just wanted to grab him and shake him, it wasn't worth the grief he'd get. It wasn't worth the look on Sam's face when every touch hurt even if maybe Dean wasn't all that sure it would hurt if he touched Sam now.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Sam muttered. "Thank you? Okay, thank you for giving me... for doing this for me. I'm glad you didn't hate it. I... thank you."

"You didn't hate it either," Dean snapped back.

"I didn't hate it. That doesn't mean anything happens now. Or what, do you think we curl up together and call it true love?" Sam said in Dean's general direction but not to Dean's face. He tucked the pillow against his knees and stared at anything but Dean. "You don't need to be fucking your brother on a daily basis, Dean. You could have more than this."

It was ridiculous but Dean could tell Sam believed it. Which just made it more ridiculous. "More? What about you? You looking for more? Hot blondes more up your alley, Sammy?"

"Don't," Sam said, soft but firm. His palm pressed down, creasing the sheets into the mattress beside him. "Don't make it like that. I-- this, it was really-- it wasn't like anything. It was good and I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm just trying to do the right thing."

"The right thing?" Dean spat. "As opposed to what? Tell me to forget you and wait for my bullshit true love? Jesus, do you think I'm offering to be your boyfriend, Sammy?" He tried to force Sam to meet his eyes just by yelling at him mentally but that worked just about as well as actually yelling. Fucking Sam.

Sam flushed, hard and red and shook his head. "No," he whispered. "I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."

"Because I will if that's what it takes," Dean continued, and that right there, that was when Sam winced and spun around so fast. "You think I have something better to do? I didn't do you any favors, dumbass."

"Wait--" Sam began, but Dean was just about sick of his big, stupid mouth. Unless he was going to use it for blowjobs or something. When he leaned in to kiss Sam quiet it worked better than he could ever have guessed. Sam's mouth was still warm and open, and Dean could still taste himself on Sam's skin.

Sam let him do it for five mississippis, Dean counted every one. Then he pulled back, slow and careful, but at least he looked Dean in the eye. "This isn't funny, asshole," he hissed. "Stop fucking around."

"Fucking around? What do you want me to do to convince you I'm serious? Me to say I love you and serenade you with a fucking guitar?" Dean demanded. "Because don't think I won't. I will fucking humiliate you to the ground if you cross me on this, man."

Sam blinked, eyelashes soft and full, fluttering up and down, mouth hanging open. Then he laughed. Still wide mouthed, free hand pressed over it. Laughed loud, like a crazy person. "Fucker," Sam gasped out between howls of laughter. "Maybe you are serious. That's the least romantic thing I ever heard."

Dean grinned back, but he pressed his own hand next to Sam's right one, fingertips just a sheet's width away from touching. He wanted to touch, he wanted to, but it was Sam's turn now. "Sam," he said and his voice came out steadier than he ever would have thought or believed possible. "Take this or leave it. Whatever you – I mean. It's for you."

Sam's laughter dissolved into hiccups. His eyes were almost dark in the brightening sunlight. "Don't forget that I don't need you to do me any favors, okay?" he muttered and drew his hand further away instead of closer, tucking it back and out of reach. He didn't climb out of bed though, no matter how rank they both were, he just settled his head against the pillow and let Dean sit next to him.

"So... Cambridge," Dean finally asked. "We don't have to go now, do we? You're not material for their fucking sacrifice anymore. Not now." It felt weirdly satisfying to say it out loud. Sam wasn't theirs anymore, wasn't fucking Ruby's or any of the rest. Dean had touched him. Even if he never got to again, he already had.

Sam sighed and curled closer, close enough for Dean to feel the breath on his skin. Still not a touch, but good enough. "Of course we do. I'm sick of being hunted and now we know exactly where the demons are going to be. Don't you think it's time we tried to take advantage of that and did a little bit of our own hunting?"

And there was Dean's little brother, curled up, smiling and vicious, like he'd just scored ten bull's eyes in a row knife throwing. And Dean, Dean smirked back.

"I can live with that," he said. It was going to take time, no matter how much he wished it wouldn't, Dean knew that. He didn't expect anything to happen now, nothing but to stay for a little bit in the warm afterglow of Sam's smile. He definitely didn't expect Sam's fingers, light and tentative, closing the distance and sliding in between his own.

Sam made a soft, low gasp when they touched but he didn't flinch away, no more than he had when Dean kissed him or during the rest of it. After a moment, his smile lit back up, bright as it ever was and his fingers tightened around Dean's. "It doesn't hurt. She was right, I was doing it to myself," he said softly, almost under his breath, and Dean felt as light as a helium balloon. Then, louder, "I can live with that... with this too. I'm in."

Dean grinned. "Cambridge it is then. Now are we going in half-cocked or do we actually have a plan?"

Sam laughed. "Maybe we do. But you don't care," he said, but he made the words sound like a question. "You'd follow my ass anywhere, plan or not."

"Sure," Dean said and he kept smiling like it was a joke instead of God's honest truth. "It's a pretty good ass even if you need to eat more."

\   
Dean hadn't spent much time in any of the underwater cities or what was left of them. It should have been a no-brainer that there'd be ghosts and monsters lurking between the canals and flooded out buildings, but maybe there just weren't enough people to prey on. The heavy metal leaching out of the old construction was enough to kill most of them off.

Whatever the reason was there were probably a lot fewer ghosts in Greater Boston now than there had been when it was a living city and that meant Dean had no business heading up there.

Given how many people didn't live in Boston these days Dean expected to wait a while for a ride across the bay, but there was actually a flatboat tied to a makeshift iron dock that had probably been a lamppost once. The flatboat pilot was a girl with tied back red hair and a big grin. She dangled her feet off the edges of the boat like all the toxic shit that leached out of the foundations and pipes under the water didn't bother her at all.

"Hey," she said. "Pretty day, isn't it? I can never get over how pretty it is around here."

Dean stared past her at the gray and brown water and the decay stink so bad it was practically an aura over what was left of the city. "You're blind, lady," he muttered.

Sam smirked and rolled his eyes. "Ignore him, ma'am," he said and stepped up in front of Dean like he had during a thousand interviews with a thousand so called 'normal' people. "I'm Sam Winchester and he's my brother Dean and we're--"

"You need a ride across the river," the girl interrupted. "I kind of figured, what with the standing around where the boats go. Lucky you, I'm looking for passengers." She leaned forward and her feet disappeared under the murky water. Dean half expected them to burn right off, like the stuff was acid, but no matter how hard he stared they were still there when she swung them up again. She winked at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Only if you're going to Cambridge, though."

"Yes, ma'am," Sam said brightly. "We are definitely going to Cambridge."

The girl laughed. "Ma'am? Seriously? You're funny. My name's Gabe."

"Gabe," Dean snorted. "That's totally a guy's name."

"I know, right? Well spotted," the girl said, still laughing.

Sam elbowed him one in the ribs and hissed "Dean!" in his most offended whisper. Dean elbowed him back without even thinking about it. Not until half a second later when he realized that, hey, he'd just touched Sam. It was broad daylight, both of them all the way awake and not even smelling like... not sex. And he touched Sam. Who grinned at him like he was an asshole and didn't flinch at all.

"So are you coming or are you too busy play fighting? It might be a beautiful day but that doesn't mean I want to sit here for all of it," Gabe called and Sam just gave Dean one last shove and then hopped onto the boat before he received his justified retaliation. That was okay, though. Dean knew where he lived.

"Why are you only going to Cambridge today anyway?" Dean asked before he stepped on board himself. "Is something wrong on the other side of the bay?"

Gabe shrugged. "Nope. I've just got a message to take to Harvard Yard. Figured I'd wait and see if I could get some passengers as long as I was going anyway."

"You carry a lot of messages?" Dean asked, still not sure why he was asking, what it was he wanted to know.

Gabe's smile was guileless and bright and somehow that was enough for Dean, he was already clambering on board even when she kept talking. "It's what I do, so yeah. Call it my special talent."

Sam and Dean settled into spots on opposite sides of the boat from each other, which didn't stop Dean from catching Sam's eyes and grinning every couple of seconds. It was weird because there was a good chance they were headed toward certain doom or at least the lair of a bunch of really fucking powerful demons.

Dean shouldn't have felt this light, this on top of things But here he was, leaning back against a boat that was sort of precariously floating over a death trap of water and ruined brick and steel while his brother sat next to a pretty girl and laughed with her. It shouldn't have felt this good, but Dean wasn't going to knock it.

"No, I'm pretty new to here," Gabe told Sam in answer to some question Dean hadn't heard. "I mean... I've been around before but not in a long, long time. Don't worry, though, I know all the navigation tricks. Native talent."

"You lived in Boston before the floods? It must suck to see it this way," Sam said, with a gentleness Gabe just dismissed with a wave of her hand.

Gabe shook her head at first like she was going to say something, and then stopped and shrugged. "Well, I'm here now. That's all anyone can do," she finally said. "I'm here now." If Sam felt much like talking after that he didn't do anything to indicate it and they floated the rest of the way with just the sound of Gabe's paddle against the water.

It felt like a long time before they hit the other shore. A small island of red brick, trees and concrete, surrounded by the mostly submerged hulks of what had to have been stores and banks, smooth broken glass shards still gaping every time a wave broke. "Harvard Yard," Gabe said. "Or what's left of it."

"It looks less different than how I expected it to be," Sam whispered.

"It looks different enough," Dean muttered. In the back of his mind he could still see it the way it had been on the last job he and Dad had ever worked here, when Sam was finishing up his freshman year of high school and screaming too loudly about finals for even dad to take him hunting. It had been jampacked with people, crazy kids with mohawks and ripped leather pants skateboarding over brick paths and bicyclists weaving through the tourist mobs. Alive. Dean couldn't see a single living person now.

"No," Sam said, and he wasn't looking at Dean. "It's exactly the way I dreamed it."

"It sucks to dream like that," Gabe said, but her eyes weren't on them. She was staring off into the distance, like she could already see the place she was supposed to be. "You guys know where you're going?" she asked, but she still wasn't looking.

"Yeah," Sam said before Dean could say anything. "How about you? You know where you're delivering your message?"

Gabe shrugged. She hopped out of the boat without answering and they climbed after her while she tied it to another makeshift dock.

"Will you be around a while once your message is delivered?" Dean asked. "We're going to need a ride back." Not wishful thinking, Dean wasn't worried about that. Sam was with him and Sam wasn't afraid.

Gabe turned and looked back at them. Her eyes looked bluer against the background of broken glass and brick. "I hope so," she said. "I'll see you on the flip side." Then she turned and walked away, vanished into one of the derelict buildings before Dean had a chance to call after her.

Ruby was waiting for them by the entrance of the old Divinity Library. She waved when she saw them coming. "This place brings back memories," she said. "I used to sit on the steps and corrupt the preacher wannabes when they walked by."

Dean straightened up and glared down at her. "You said you'd tell us something about our father when we got here," he said, like he had a hope in hell of that actually happening, like that was really why they were there. Ruby grinned.

"Did I say that?" she said, tone slow and measured. She tucked a careless strand of hair behind her ear and pushed herself to her feet. "Well, then it's only fair. I knew John Winchester and I know what really happened. Your daddy died to save your ass, Dean. So that you could get Sam's ass where it needed to be."

"A witch killed him," Dean said, almost blurting the words out. He could hear Sam's intake of breath and tried not to think about what Sam had told him, about his dad's body, about any of that. "He didn't _die_. He was fucking killed. Butchered."

"He died," Ruby said. "A witch killed him so that he could send a message to someone I couldn't reach. So that all of our players could get to the right place at the right time." She might have said something else, but that was when Sam finally pushed past Dean like he'd been waiting to do it for a long time.

"Stop it," he said. He sounded steady, calm. Sam on the bleeding edge. "You asked me to come, not my Dad. You asked for Dean to bring me. Tell me why."

"If you don't know by now, I've been giving you way too much credit for being smart." Ruby gave Sam a long, steady look and Sam just shrugged, taking it. "There's a grimoire that contains a summoning. I want you to read it. Just be yourself and read it."

"Why--" Sam began, but Dean didn't let him finish. He was tired of Sam taking it, tired of watching that.

"It won't work," he said. "Your stupid plan to summon Lucifer or whatever the fuck it is you want—forget it. You can't use Sam for that, he's not yours."

"Not mine?" Ruby showed Dean her teeth. Blazing white, an exact match for the mark over Sam's hip. "You think, what, that you fuck him and your scent wipes everything else that came before off the map? Very canine of you, Dean."

"Maybe I think that," Sam said before Dean had a chance to. Before he had a chance to move fists and body to erase her face. "Maybe I'm the one that wants that, I want you off me. I want everyone but him off me." Sam might have stepped forward, closer to Ruby, but Dean checked him with his hip, just in case, and Sam didn't fight it.

Ruby tilted her chin. "Everyone wants things, Sam," she said.

"Yeah, and what do you want?" Sam asked. His voice was tight, wound up like it was a challenge. "What the hell's the point of this?"

"Nothing but what you're already going to do, what you're here for." Her voice was firm, steady, like reading the news or a dictionary. "Perform the ritual. Read from the grimoire."

"Well it won't summon your fucking Lucifer now, so why?" Dean spat. "Nothing's gonna happen even if he does it. Sam's no good for that--"

"Dean," Sam interrupted sharply. "Why don't we hear Ruby out?"

Ruby grinned. "Thank you, Sam. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, just do the ritual. Don't worry about Lucifer. Lucifer always does a good enough job worrying about himself."

Dean reached out behind him and relaxed when Sam stepped forward and grabbed his hand, even if he only held on for a second. "So if waking up your stupid demon god isn't the point of this whole pathetic little game of charades, what is?" he demanded.

Ruby laughed out loud, bright and irrepressible. "Lucifer isn't a god, Dean, no matter what some lesser demon told you. God is one and Lucifer is just another fallen angel. And he's not who we're asking to wake up and listen to us."

Dean shrugged, feeling Sam's body pressed closed to his with the motion."Fucking stop dodging this. What do you want him for? What do you want this ritual for?"

Ruby didn't answer but Sam did. "Oh." Sam's voice from beside him was sudden and almost unrecognizably soft. "Oh. He's not... It wasn't for the devil was it? It was never about that," Sam said. "I'll do it," he finished, before Ruby even opened her mouth. Dean went stiff beside him.

"Oh, it's definitely to please the devil." Ruby's eyebrow went up and her mouth curled into a smile. "You do me honor," she said and bowed her head just a little, enough to make her hair sway. Sam flinched but just for a second and then he stiffened back up so fast it was like he thought he could convince them it never happened.

"I'll do it if you tell me what you want out of this," Sam said, before Dean got a chance to smack him one in the head for being a dumbass. "How you want this to end. Why you want this from _me_?"

Ruby shook her head, but not as if she were saying no. "Of course it's you, Sam. There's a story, you know," she said softly. "That even the worst city in the world was worth saving for the sake of a single righteous man. That there are people... humans, always humans, whose voices get heard."

"Ruby--" Sam whispered.

"Beloved," she said. Her eyes were very dark and very clear, like black ice in the winter. "I want to go home, like any creature might. I want to have a home to go to. But he won't hear me, not now, maybe never. He won't listen to me, Sam."

"You're not just any creature," Sam said. "And I'm not like that, I'm not--"

"Let me worry about what you're not," Ruby said and for once Dean didn't feel like arguing with her, especially when Sam gave him that look, that pleading quiet look that Dean was getting sick of seeing. "Come on, we have a lot to do and more than one someone is waiting for us to get on with it."

[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)


	5. The Devil's Mark (5/6)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **The Devil's Mark (5/6)** _

See [Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html) for headers and such  
  
[Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html)/[Part Two](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52308.html)/[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)/[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)/[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)/[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)  


Interlude Two

When he dreams, Sam's in the dark and there's blood on his face. None of it is his, but it drips over his eyes and into his mouth like he showered in arterial spray. He's panting for breath and he just sucks in more blood instead of air, gasping and choking on it.

There's a knife in his hand, but that's not what he's killing with. He speaks to them and they die, the inky demon clouds, that are all that's left when he pulls them from their bodies, spilling and shattering in the open air. They've kept him alone in the dark for so long, for so damned long and now he wants to rip them to shreds.

When he speaks he hears Ruby's voice, feels the heavy weight of her wings on his back, feathers touching him everywhere. Her power, a witch's power, fucked into him. Sam uses it instead of his knife to kill them all.

The house is almost empty of everything but Sam and meat when she finds him. Sam's looking for the last one, the one that hung him by his wrists and laughed when he screamed. Once he finds the last one he can go, but Ruby finds him first.

"Stupid," she says when she catches him from behind, catches him by the wrists and pushes him into a wall and still. "You were supposed to go and get yourself to your brother." Sam winces and tries to shake her loose, but she's stronger, all that borrowed power coursing through him is really hers in the end and all he has to fight her with is the broken remnants of his own strength.

"You said I could hurt them," he whispers. It hurts to speak, like his throat is cracked from the inside by whatever power he'd used to suck the demons out.

"I know," Ruby says. She sounds tired, bone worn. Like Sam feels, she sounds like that. "But not this loudly. I'll say you went a little overboard. Drew a lot of attention. This will make it harder."

"Fuck you," he says, but there's no force behind the words. His face is still shoved into the wall and the rough stone rubs painfully against his skin. "You promised me I could. You promised me... I want him-- my brother. Dean."

"You made it harder," Ruby repeats softly, mouth up against his ear in a way that makes him want to flinch away. "I have a lot to set up to finish if this is going to work, Sam. I can't afford to have Brother Azazel dogging my heels now."

"Brother Azazel?" Sam mutters. "Who knew demon scum had brothers?"

Ruby presses her knee into his back, making his already twisted up spine scream. Sam bites his lip to blood, his own this time, but it doesn't taste different from the rest. "This way will be harder on you, but you'll still get what I promised. Actually, now that I think about it... this way will work too. Now, you have to promise me something. One thing."

"What?" Sam spits, hacking the iron wet out of his mouth.

He feels Ruby's cheek against the back of his neck, warm and soft. "Sometime, not too long from now, someone-- probably it will be Azazel-- is going to ask you my name. Tell it to him. For the rest of it, all you're going to need to do is be yourself."

Sam rolls his eyes. "I don't know your name, other than it's not really Ruby."

Ruby laughs. "When you're feeling better and you've had some time to think about it, you will."

It's too much. Sam can't process it. He tastes blood. All he tastes is blood. "I can't anymore, I can't. I want to go," he whispers. "I want to go. I want Dean."

"Okay," Ruby tells him. "Just a little while longer." She kisses him, a gentle press of lips, warm and slick on the nape of his neck. He thinks he might be crying, the taste of salt is thick, heavy as the blood.

"Dean," he says.

The last thing he feels is a blow to the head, precise and vicious, followed by blackness.

When he wakes up he's in a cage chained to a flatbed truck, bound and bridled under the vicious noonday sun. A man is staring at him, narrow eyed. He smells human, he smells weak. If Sam could open his mouth he could crumble that man into dust and then he'd find Ruby, the lying, traitorous demon scum.

But there's a metal bridle biting deep inside his mouth, wearing away at flesh and keeping him quiet. He's got no weapons, not now. He's going nowhere.

"I paid too much for you, boy," the man tells him. "You're going to earn your keep until I sell you North." He swaggers but Sam can smell the fear stink wafting off of him. Can smell it deep down into his lungs, but that doesn't stop him from flinching inside when the man touches him.

He doesn't want anyone to touch him but he can't even say that, there are no more words. It hurts, touch, like fire, like a cattle prod. The man is touching him and Sam can't tell if the fear he smells is the man's or his own.

Sam closes his eyes and he thinks _Dean_ and he remembers being sixteen and awkward and safe, before the world broke, before he did. He closes his eyes and tries to make everything else go away.

[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)


	6. The Devil's Mark ( 6/6)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural), [the devil's mark](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/the+devil%27s+mark)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **The Devil's Mark ( 6/6)** _

See [Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html) for headers and such  
  
[Part One](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52113.html)/[Part Two](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52308.html)/[Part Three](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52686.html)/[Part Four](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/52943.html)/[Part Five](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53041.html)/[Part Six](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/53412.html)

Ruby held her head so high when she walked it was like she was a marionette being held up by strings. Chin up and proud as anything. Dean watched her from two paces behind, Sam still warm and close enough that he wasn't worried about much. He watched her and wondered.

Inside the library it looked like the floodwaters had all poured through and more than once. Bookcases scattered everywhere, the sick scent of mildew and rot almost chokingly thick. They followed Ruby into what had probably been the old reading room once.

Dean never would have picked out the book they wanted, not in a million years, in the middle of what looked like a graveyard for them, except for one thing. It was the only one unmarred, pristine, like it hadn't spent a couple years intermittently underwater.

Ruby picked it up off a table made of twisted and warped wood and handed it to Sam. "It's your show now," she said.

Sam sighed, heavy and loud and sat down in one of the wrecked chairs before thumbing the book open. "I don't know why you expect this to work," he said. "I'm not exactly innocent anymore."

Ruby just shook her head. "You are what you have to be. You were all along."

Dean was so busy watching the tableaux of ridiculous in front of him that he almost didn't hear the footsteps behind him. Almost, but he was still the first one spun around, holy water pistol in his hand and the real gun just in reach, like either of them was going to do any good.

The man who stepped into the room looked impossibly ordinary. Graying hair and the beginnings of a beer gut, dressed in worn old jeans and a dirty button down shirt like a thousand guys in a thousand bars Dean had never bothered to meet.

But this man was nothing like them, his eyes were yellow and gleamed in the dull light pouring in through the broken windows. This man made Sam draw in his breath loud enough for Dean to hear and take a step back, away, like he was trying to protect himself.

Ruby stood up straighter, but didn't interfere, and if the yellow eyed man saw her at all he didn't spare her a second glance.

"Hello, Sam," he said. "You left us so suddenly, someone might almost think you weren't happy with us."

Sam didn't say anything but the floor started to shake and Dean knew, he knew without a word being said, who it was they were sharing a room with. He couldn't help raising his gun, couldn't help the urge to shoot.

The yellow eyed man-- Azazel, of course it was, didn't even look in Dean's direction, just flicked a wrist and the next thing Dean knew, he was slamming back into the wall, the gun lost, clattering onto the broken floorboards.

He gasped for air and for a long moment he couldn't move at all, pinned where he was, just watching. It was Sam who moved next.

"You won't touch him," Sam hissed and raised his own hand. Dean fell so fast he felt the impact up his knees. He lunged forward, ignoring the twinges from his body, ignoring everything but Sam, who was standing by himself. Dean stopped next to him, by his side, almost touching. Sam was never going to have to stand by himself again.

"You think you can use the power I gave you against me?" Azazel asked, smiling, bright and curious, still not paying Dean any attention at all. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Sam shuddered, a deep, whole body shake that reminded Dean of too many nightmares and made him want to scream and kill. He stayed steady though, stayed close.

"Not your power," Sam said then and he opened his mouth and those words came out, the brutal, twisted ones in the language that Dean couldn't recognize. "Nothing of mine is yours." Somewhere, Dean thought he heard the clacking of Ruby's boots against the floorboards but nothing else. This was Sam's show.

For just a second Dean thought Azazel, the fucker, would shrug off the words, Sam's power, like they were nothing, like everything he'd done was nothing. Just a second, though, and then the old bastard faltered and flinched, covering his face with his palm.

He came up smiling anyway, like it hadn't hurt at all or if it had, he'd liked it fine. "Not my power?" he said, and if there was a tremor in his voice he was doing pretty good at hiding it. "Whose, then?"

Ruby clapped her hands together, slow and easy, like she could make even clapping sarcastic. Dean watched Azazel's face change. "You used to be more observant, brother of mine," she said. "Less arrogant too. It was a better look for you."

Azazel's eyes burned yellow as streetlights before he turned to look at her. He smiled and raised an eyebrow at Ruby. "And what would your name be, brother dear? Not Belial or Baphomet, is it?"

Ruby laughed. Low and musical, in an unfamiliar voice, too deep for the body that she was wearing "Those are names to conjure with, but come on now. You know me better than that, brother."

Azazel shrugged and took a step forward and the room went blurry in front of Dean's eyes, like he'd just taken a hit of something awesome and it was melting the wiring of his brain. Azazel's shoulders seemed to flicker as he walked, a bare, middle aged man's arms one second, wings the next, wide stretched and slicing through the air. "I think you're a minor creature putting on airs. What do you say to that?"

"I say?" Ruby laughed. She looked the same, just a small, blonde girl, no bright crackles of power, nothing. But she walked forward, right past Azazel like he was nothing. She kept walking until Sam took her hands in his. "I don't have to say."

"Sam can say, though," Ruby crooned, smiling. She stepped behind Sam, laying her hands on both of his shoulders. Her fingers tightened, kneading into Sam's skin, creasing his shirt. He gasped and then he slid down, down onto his knees in a way that made Dean want to jump for him, something, anything. If he could just fucking move, if he didn't feel so frozen to the ground. "Don't you have something to say, Sam?"

"Yes," Sam whispered and he turned so that Dean could see him better. The expression on his face made Dean stop struggling. Sam's face was calm, open, almost waiting. Sam had a plan. Sam knew something. Dean let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Come on, Winchester," Azazel said. He sounded almost soft, almost curious. "All that fire and energy, all these years, all just to keep on telling me no. Me, Lucifer's standard bearer! And you go and give yourself to her? Who is she? What did she offer you?"

"She's worse than you, standard bearer," Sam said. His eyes were vivid green even from Dean's view, all iris as if he were blinded by some bright light shining over his face. "She's the worst thing there is."

"Who is she? What's her name?" Azazel asked and even Dean could hear the beginnings of cracks, of frustration. "Tell me who she is."

Ruby smirked, sticky-sweet and stepped around Sam's kneeling body. She cupped his face in both hands, sliding her thumbs over cheeks and then lips as if she were going to part them. "Sam. Do as Brother Azazel asks, won't you? Open the book and call me by name."

Sam closed his eyes and rested his hands on the grimoire, the one he still had clutched in one hand. "Your name is Lightbringer," he whispered, like it was no surprise at all. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Morningstar. Lucifer. And I'm not a fit sacrifice for you, not anymore."

And the guts of the world dropped out for Dean but Sam's face was quiet and calm. Like he'd known, known for a long time.

"You're lying. No," Azazel whispered and Dean felt a fierce, twisting joy when he recognized emotion in that voice. Confusion. Fear. It would have been even better if he couldn't feel his own fear, roiling up like bile in his guts, like he was going to puke. "If the ritual isn't for you-- No. You're not him. He wouldn't. He wouldn't do this."

"No?" Ruby asked, but she hardly spared a glance for Azazel. Standard bearer, he'd said, like he was proud of it. He didn't look proud now and she didn't look like she'd ever noticed. "Why wouldn't I do this?"

"Because we did it for you. We broke everything for you, and you can't just go crawling back... I won't let you call him. I won't let you do this," he said, but if she heard him, she didn't answer. Dean had to squint against the wavering in the air, the heavy weight of it as Azazel flickered and hissed, one second the beer gutted average guy, the next, a white winged monster with flaring yellow eyes. "Even Lucifer. I wouldn't even let him."

"It must happen," Ruby said and for a second she almost looked kind, almost looked tired. "It's more than just for me, whatever you think. He's been absent for too long. Without his attention the world is shredding at the seams."

"It's shredding because _I_ shredded it. Since when have we cared for the world? Since when have you? I'll see the boy dead first, before I let you go crawling back to him," Azazel growled. He didn't do anything but Dean could see Sam twitch, see the way he started to shiver, like something hurt.

Dean didn't know he couldn't move again until he tried, until it was like hitting a wall of brick and ice, freezing his skin. It felt different from Azazel's slamming him into the wall, subtler but harder to fight. "Stop it," he screamed and he wasn't sure to who, who would hear him. He was so close to Sam, close enough to touch, but he wasn't touching, wasn't helping. Sam didn't look up, didn't look anywhere except for Ruby's face. "Stop this."

"Sam. Say the words. Read the grimoire. Call him back to us and tell him that you love the world. Tell him that you love me," Ruby said to Sam, straight and easy, like she deserved it. Dean could feel every word she said in his stomach, the world twisting. He wanted to scream when he watched Sam squirm along with it, like he was trying to reel away from Ruby's hook but it was dug in too deep to pull loose.

Like he was being torn up and Dean couldn't touch him.

"Love you?" Sam repeated. His eyes were still screwed closed and Ruby's grip on his face didn't falter, but there was something else in his expression. A twist of half smile, too familiar these days. Dean promised himself he was going to make Sam stop doing that, going to make Sam smile for real, just as soon as they got the fuck out of here. "That would be a little pretentious of me, wouldn't it?"

"I won't let you do this," said Azazel, and the walls began to move, to shake. Dean could hear the bookshelves, the ones that had survived the floods this long, moaning and cracking. "I told you, I'll kill him first." Sam's face went white and he looked up but Ruby didn't turn around, not even when the floor cracked, when Sam bit down on his lower lip like he was suppressing a scream. If she was going to stop Azazel herself she wasn't giving any indication of it.

"Then don't love me, just read it. I know it hurts but read the grimoire, Sam," Ruby said, soft and relentless. "You have to do it, it has to be you. I can't help you. There's no one else who can."

Sam took a slow, shuddering breath and went back to mumbling, almost incomprehensible while he rocked back and forth like something hurt inside. The floorboards started to creak underneath them.

"Stop it!" Dean hardly knew if he was yelling, he was just shoving harder against his invisible bonds, like beating his own head would help somehow. "Somebody stop it! Somebody, for fucking God's sake!"

There was no God, Dean was sure of that. There was no God and there was no help, just demons and fighting them. Just Sam who was staring down at the book in his hands, mouthing words while his body shook and a line of blood dripped down his chin from his torn, bitten mouth.

There was no God but when the front door swung open, somehow Dean wasn't even a little surprised when Gabe the flatboat pilot stepped in. She looked different, her hair had come loose from its tie and hung around her face like a halo of pale red. She had a sword in one hand and carried it light and easy, like she'd been practicing for a thousand years. Longer.

She wasn't smiling and that changed her face completely. "Someone needed a witness? I got your message, brother mine," she said, and nodded at Ruby, firm and steady. Then she looked at Dean, the first fucking person who had and for a fraction of a second, she did smile. "I'm here."

"It had to be you, huh? Shame I never liked you, Gabriel." Ruby muttered and rolled her eyes.

Gabe's eyebrows went up. "Well, it's a good thing I still like you, Brother. Good thing this is bigger than the redemption of a demon. Even you."

"No," Azazel said. The thick hurt in his voice was all Dean could hear. It didn't make him want to rip the fucker limb from limb any less. "Without the boy, you have nothing." When he clenched his hand Sam screamed. Tipped his head back and screamed, clutching at the book like a white knuckle grip was the only thing keeping him from dropping it.

"You with the sword," Dean screamed back, "Fucking help him, already!"

Gabe shook her head and walked up to him. The sword glowed brighter and brighter, like it was drawing energy from Sam's screams. "I can't," she said. "I'm a messenger, I don't intervene."

"Then what the fuck good are you?" Dean hissed. He could taste salt, taste his own blood and tears. He was no better, watching and watching and not doing anything. "He's calling your stupid God, isn't he? Doing what you're too useless to do. Help him."

"I can't," she said. She was close enough that Dean could smell apples on her breath. Before he could say anything else, before he could rail and threaten, she touched him. Her hands felt warm, impossibly warm and calmed the knocking, pounding sounds of his own heart. All he could hear for a second was her, her and the way Sam was screaming. "I can't," she said. "But you can."

When her hands slid off him, Dean could breathe. Dean could move. She bowed her head, almost smiling and then offered him her sword, hilt first. "Your brother will mend the seams of the world," she said. "Stop Azazel and let him do it."

When Dean's hands closed on the hilt he stopped listening to her, stopped listening to anyone at all but Sam and the thing that was hurting Sam. He held Gabriel's sword and the world narrowed into light. It didn't matter that he'd never held a sword before, never needed to, because he could see Azazel, really see him, his blackened wings and the curdled yellow of his power. A demon, corrupt from the inside, something that had never been human.

He could see Azazel, see what he really was, where he really was, and that meant he could hurt the fucker now that he had the weapon to do it. His first blow was from behind and Dean felt a vague but deep satisfaction when Sam stopped screaming and Azazel started.

"You're never going to hurt him again," Dean said when Azazel looked at him, finally seemed to notice that he was there. His voice was firm, knowing it was true.

"You think the world will be better with God and Lucifer both awake in it, Dean Winchester?" Azazel hissed, holding his bleeding side. Not red blood, just a thick yellow fluid that stank of sulfur and death. "She might have told you that she wants peace, but she was made to tell lies. All you'll get is a new war between heaven and hell with your kind squeezed in the middle."

"Hey, but on the plus side, you'll be dead once I get finished killing you," Dean said and raised his sword again. This time Azazel parried, hard enough to make Dean's teeth ring. Dean didn't even know where he'd pulled the weapon from, might as well have been out of his ass. It gleamed a dull black in the dimly lit room.

Azazel smirked. "An angel's sword is only enough to kill me when someone knows how to use it."

Dean gritted his teeth and struck again, only to be parried again. The sword whispered to him when he moved and that was the only way he was ready for Azazel's own blow. The fucker hit hard enough to rattle Dean's bones, but Dean had learned from the best. He was ready, more than ready for this game of thrust, parry, counterstrike. Especially when he heard Sam's voice, getting steadier, a soft thread in the background, speaking the words of a ritual that Dean barely understood.

Even without knowing the words, Sam's tone sounded like he was still sixteen again, steady and unbroken, arguing with Dad and maybe winning too. Dean's relentless, fearless brother.

"You never would have beaten him," Dean said and he was smiling without realizing he'd done it until he felt the stretch of his lips. "He was always going to win against you."

"That's not what he said when I spread his legs for him," Azazel said, but the fucker was breathing hard, Dean could hear it. He was making the bastard work for it. "He begged prettier than anything you've ever seen then. One of the things he begged for was you, at least at first."

Dean didn't say anything, just bit inside his cheek and aimed for Azazel's unprotected side. He was rewarded with the heavy feel of the blade sinking into meat and another spurt of the yellow not-blood.

"After a while," Azazel panted, "he stopped begging for you. Must have known you weren't coming. After a while, he forgot your name. I did that to him."

"Wait until you see what I'll do to you," Dean spat and arched his blade to parry another cut. Azazel's sword slipped through, just grazing skin. Dean hissed, but didn't falter, not until the second strike went under his guard and drew deeper. There was sweat dripping in his eyes and whatever he was going to do, he couldn't blink it away. If he closed his eyes, even for a second, he knew what he'd see. Sam. Sam like that.

He didn't really have a plan, other than slicing the demon scum to death and then... something. Dean didn't know. Whatever his almost plan was, it fell away when somewhere to the left of him Sam stopped speaking the words of the ritual.

For a second, the longest second Dean remembered in the history of ever, there was nothing. Blank, stomach churning nothing where all Dean could see were Azazel's narrow yellow eyes. Then there was light.

Dean wasn't good with words, wasn't interested. Sam might have been able to describe what happened later, maybe. Dean never planned to ask him. All Dean knew was light, and that this was the only feeling that had ever come close to looking into Sam's hazel green eyes and knowing just how much he mattered.

_Peace_, something said, that didn't sound like a voice at all. Dean might have felt that, he really might have, but he still couldn't take his eyes off Azazel, couldn't lower his guard and turn around to see, not even when Azazel's sword slipped out of his hands and went clattering to the ground. It shattered under the reflection of the light.

"Please," someone said and that voice Dean knew was Ruby's even though it didn't sound a thing like her.

There was light and for some unfathomable length of time, Dean stopped feeling anything at all. He never knew how much time passed, no idea. Just that when the light finally receded, Azazel was gone. Azazel was gone, and now it was Gabe standing in front of him and Dean could see her, really see her the way he'd seen Azazel before.

Her hair was still red and her eyes were blue, even bluer than before. Endless and serene, reflecting his own face back at him. Her body wasn't really a woman's anymore, but it wasn't a man's either. Her wings beat against the air, reflecting the light. "Thank you, Dean Winchester," she said. "It's done."

There were a thousand things Dean could have thought about, but only one of them mattered. He let the sword slide from his nerveless fingers, let Gabe catch it in hers. The world shifted, turning duller, thicker. Ordinary. Dean didn't care.

Azazel was gone, but he wasn't. He wasn't and so Sam must be--

"Sam," he said, spinning around to where he'd last seen his brother. "Sammy!"

Sam was still kneeling on the floor, eyes closed, the thin trickle of blood drying on his chin. Dean could see the soft rise and fall of his chest. Breath. He didn't hesitate, just ran to his brother and dropped to his knees next to him.

When Dean pressed his mouth over Sam's, Sam opened his eyes. For a fraction of a second they gleamed blue, blue as Gabriel's and brighter. Then Dean deepened his kiss and Sam blinked and they darkened back to the soft, familiar hazel green. Dean felt Sam's hands, wide and big, coming up to cup the back of his neck and pull him closer, deeper.

Sam's mouth tasted of blood and smoke and salt. It was nasty and the best thing that Dean had ever felt.   
Dean couldn't have broken away to save his life, not even if it meant never breathing again. Sam had to do it for him. Sam, soft and smiling, almost shy. Not really.

"So you just saved the world, right?" Dean asked, smiling despite everything. "That's what you just did with your crazy ass hocus pocus."

"And you saved me, Dean," Sam said and grinned, showing all his teeth. Bright and open like he never was anymore "Thanks for covering my ass."

"You can thank me with blowjobs," Dean said easily. "Lots of blowjobs. Oh, and by washing my car."

"Yeah, you can wash your own car," Sam said, still grinning like a maniac. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else but then he looked past Dean, seemed caught by something behind him. Pulling away to look at anything that wasn't Sam's, his Sam's, face was not Dean's idea of a good time, but he did it anyway.

Ruby stood next to Gabe, empty hands held open at her sides. She looked drawn, haggard, like she'd aged a thousand years in moments.

"He won't give up," she said. "I didn't know he'd be... like that. Angry. I knew he'd want an advantage, but I didn't expect him to... care."

"Azazel was always angry," Gabe murmured. "So were you. The world has managed to survive it so far. It will be easier now."

Ruby shrugged and tossed her head. Her back was still straight, unbending. "Maybe I still am. But, I can get over it. If he can." She nodded her chin upwards and Dean knew that 'he' wasn't Azazel.

Gabe laughed, bright and easy and she cupped her hand against Ruby's cheek, pressed her forehead close up against Ruby's. "He has, a long time ago. All you ever had to do was ask."

Ruby snorted. "He wouldn't have come just for me, if I was the one asking instead one of his humans. I know that much."

Gabe shook her head and pressed herself closer. Her wings slid open and tapped against Ruby's. "You don't know, because you never asked him to, did you? He never stopped loving you, you dumbshit. Quit being so argumentative for once and just come home."

Ruby made a sound that Dean wouldn't have recognized if he hadn't just made it himself, kissing Sam. "Yeah," she said. "Okay." She turned around then, looked right at Sam and nodded her head. Dean could feel the movement when Sam nodded back, slow and wordless.

Gabe just grinned and gave them both a salute. "By the way, boys, just so you know-- your daddy says hello."

Dean wasn't even remotely surprised that they were both gone between breaths before he had a chance to even ask a question.

"Hope I never see you again," Sam mumbled from beside him. Dean just reached down and grabbed one of his hands and held on hard and tight. He had his brother with him, and they were both alive. He didn't know if it felt like victory but it felt like enough.

He didn't hear the waters recede, but when they stumbled back outside they could hear the waves and see the tug of the tides. Across the Bay, over the twisted metal and broken glass where the Prudential Center used to be, there was a rainbow, bright and perfectly wide.


End file.
